


Just Ben

by Operation_Save_Ben_Solo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Falling In Love, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghosts, Kissing, Kylo Ren Redemption, Lightsabers, POV Alternating, POV Ben Solo, POV Kylo Ren, POV Rey (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Romance, Spoilers, Stormtrooper Rebellion, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-04-22 02:29:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14298801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Operation_Save_Ben_Solo/pseuds/Operation_Save_Ben_Solo
Summary: Star Wars Episode IX: The Way I See It In My Head (a.k.a. what I will turn to for comfort if the real Episode IX breaks my Ben Solo-loving heart). Partially inspired by Ohtze's meta "Kill the King and Take the Crown" and about a million other things I've read online. Picks up three months after the events of TLJ when Rey and Kylo Ren cross paths at General Leia Organa's funeral on Naboo. Features: redemption, Force bond kissing, a double-bladed lightsaber, the real Armitage Hux, Chewie as a father figure, plenty of callbacks to previous SW movies, and an infestation of Force ghosts.





	1. The Force Bond Re-Awakens

**Author's Note:**

> All eight chapters of this work are complete and will be uploaded one at a time approximately a week apart. I'm brand new to fanfic and have limited knowledge of the SW universe outside of the movies (and what I could find fairly easily on Google) so please keep that in mind while reading. I tried to stay true to canon (as I understand it) whenever possible. Any deviations are either unintentional or for creative purposes. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I would love to hear your thoughts/constructive criticism!

Rey stood between Finn and Poe on a wide street at the heart of Naboo's capital city, watching as a bevy of white-robed attendants guided Princess-turned-General Leia Organa's glass-topped casket to its final resting place in a gilded mausoleum reserved for Naboo's most beloved royalty.

Leia was to be interred next to her biological mother, Senator Padme Amidala. While laying the beloved Resistance leader to rest next to the mother she had never known had seemed an unusual choice to some, it made perfect sense to Rey (who couldn't bear the thought of Leia's body being left alone in a grave on some no-name planet), especially when one considered how woefully short they were on other meaningful options.

Both Leia's adopted parents and home planet of Alderaan had been destroyed by the Death Star at the hands of General Tarkin and the Empire more than thirty years before. Her twin brother, Luke, had become one with the Force at the conclusion of the battle on Crait and therefore didn’t have a final resting place. Their father, Anakin Skywalker, had been cremated, his ashes scattered on the winds of Endor long ago. And her estranged husband, Han Solo, had been lost to the abyss on Starkiller Base, dead at the hands of their own son.

Rey shifted from one foot to the other, as restless in her memories as she was uncomfortable in the traditional Nabooian mourning dress and elaborate hairstyle Rose had talked her into that morning. What she wouldn't give for her staff and the light, loose desert clothing she'd worn on Jakku. But this wasn't Jakku, and the occasion – indeed Leia herself – demanded a higher level of respect.

Leia's sudden death from a heart attack during a recruitment mission to the Outer Rim had taken them all by surprise, but it had devastated Poe, who had always been close to the woman he considered both a surrogate mother and a mentor. Unexpectedly thrust into his role as sole leader of the fractured Resistance – and determined to honor the woman whose shoes he was trying so hard to fill – Poe had argued long and hard in favor of having the funeral on Naboo, in part, he'd said, because it offered perfect cover for a clandestine meeting with government officials. He knew Naboo had both troops and ships to spare and plenty of reason to believe they would be sympathetic to the cause.

Under Leia and Poe's leadership, the Resistance had spent the three months since the battle on Crait meeting with potential allies and scouting abandoned Rebel bases for whatever weapons, ships, and technology they could salvage for the cause. All while trying to hide from the First Order.

Not that the First Order had been trying all that hard to find them. There were rumors of dissension in the ranks, of power struggles between the new Supreme Leader and General Armitage Hux. Whispers that Kylo Ren wasn't fit to lead.

Rey knew for a fact he wasn't. Not because he was a terrible person, but because he was too conflicted, too damaged by years of abuse at the hands of a sadistic mentor. Snoke might be dead, but it seemed his influence extended far beyond the grave, as did the Force bond he'd claimed to have forged between Rey and his young apprentice. She'd assumed the bond had died with Snoke, but that final vision of Ben Solo on one knee – humiliated, defeated, and clutching in vain at his dead father's gold dice – proved otherwise.

She had shut him out that day, out of necessity as much as anything, knowing her compassion for him could not come before her responsibility to her friends, and to the Resistance. In the days and weeks following their escape from Crait, as the imminent danger receded and life settled into a somewhat predictable rhythm, Rey had finally had time to explore the nature of the bond between her and Kylo Ren apart from Snoke's manipulation.

When Rey envisioned the bond, what she saw was a thread of awareness that bound them together no matter the distance between them. To her great relief, it seemed the visual aspects of the bond, when not manipulated by outside forces, could only be activated through mutual consent. The vision on Crait must have been an echo of the connection they had shared – however briefly – in Snoke's throne room or an unwitting response to the pain she'd felt as she'd watched him kneel on the dusty ground and cry for all he had lost. It must have been impossible for either of them to turn away in the face of such vulnerability, and so the Force had connected them yet again, at least until she had come to her senses and literally shut the door between them.

That door was still closed, only she was no longer the one responsible. Her few hesitant tugs on the thread – made in moments of extreme weakness when compassion overruled her typical good sense – had all gone unanswered. But, enough fractured thoughts and feelings made their way down the bond for her to believe the door had been left open a crack, even if unintentionally. As a result, Rey knew the depth of the conflict that still raged within Ben Solo and wondered often if the bond allowed him to feel hers as well.

Just then, Rey felt a faint, but unmistakable tingle of awareness in the back of her mind and wondered for a moment if her thoughts had somehow influenced her reality. But no, this feeling was different. And it could only mean one thing: Kylo Ren was here – on Naboo. Rey subtly scanned the crowd for a familiar black-clad figure, a squad of Stormtroopers – anything to indicate the location of the First Order and the immediacy of the threat to the Resistance and the peaceful Naboo. She saw nothing but a crowd of colorfully dressed mourners, and the occasional Nabooian palace guard pressed into service for the purposes of crowd control.

The tug came again and Rey expanded her search, turning in a slow circle as she scanned the buildings farther away and at a higher elevation from the crowd until she spotted a solitary figure standing alone in a shadowed alcove a good distance from the crowd. Although a dark hood concealed the individual's face, Rey knew this shadowed figure had to be Ben.

Rey turned to her companions. "I'm going to have to miss the meeting. I've just sensed a disturbance in the Force, and I need to check it out." It wasn't a lie, not really, although she knew her friends would assume she sought a Force-strong individual she might be able to persuade to join the cause, not the one person who could bring everything crashing down around them. But it didn't matter. She had to find him. Not only to discern whether his presence on Naboo constituted a threat to her and her friends but to find out once and for all whether there was anything left of Ben Solo worth saving. "I'll meet you at the _Falcon_ in an hour," she said.

Chewie tilted his head at her and growled low in his throat. Of course, _he_ would be the one to suspect the truth. "It'll be okay," she told him. " _I'll_ be okay. You know I can take care of myself." And he did. He'd been the one who had helped her go after Ben in the first place, despite his own complicated emotions about his best friend's son – and murderer.

"Do you want me to go with you? Or maybe Chewie?" Finn asked. Chewie rolled his eyes. Poor Finn. Rey decided one of these days she really needed to get around to teaching him Wookiee.

"I'll be okay, Finn," she reassured him. "Poe and Rose need you in that meeting, and Chewie has some maintenance to do on the _Falcon's_ hyperdrive if we're ever going to make it back to the base in one piece. Besides, I have my comm right here, so I can call if I need help." She fumbled around for a few moments before finally pulling a small communication device out of the pocket hidden in one of the many folds of her voluminous skirt. "Would you look at that? I actually managed to find it in this ridiculous dress."

Rose laughed, and even Poe managed to crack a smile. "Ridiculous dress or not, you look lovely, Rey." Rose poked Finn in the torso. "Tell her she looks beautiful, Finn."

"Beautiful. Yes, of course," Finn said in something of a daze. Rey knew he wasn't looking at her but at Rose. And she was happy for him. She was happy for them both.

They said their goodbyes, and then Rey was hurrying down the street, making her way carefully around groups of people as she searched for a route that would allow her to approach Ben from behind. Better to be safe than sorry where the Supreme Leader of the First Order was concerned.

The sun was just beginning to touch the horizon as she reached the merchant sector of the city, which was set at a higher elevation than the main thoroughfare where she'd watched the funeral procession pass just a short time earlier. Small rows of shops lined both sides of the narrow street, all of them shuttered in accordance with the decree declaring the day a citywide day of mourning.

Rey darted between two buildings and stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Ben stood at the other end of the alley, obvious despite his disguise thanks to his familiar broad-shouldered, wide-legged stance and the bond that was practically humming in her head now.

She tiptoed forward, silent as a mouse, but stopped short when he said, "Hello, Rey."

Rey sighed. "Hello, Ben."

"Did you really think you could sneak up on me?" he asked; irritation and arrogance evident in his tone. "I felt your presence long before you ever noticed mine."

"So you still feel it, too?" Rey asked.

"The bond? Yes. I feel it, too. The ability to connect emotionally with other Force-sensitive individuals who are in close proximity isn't unusual among our kind, but to feel it so intensely – and across light years –  is certainly not normal."

"So the bond is still active?"

"Apparently so. Does it bother you that we share this connection?" Kylo asked impassively.

"In some ways, yes," Rey admitted. "It makes me feel vulnerable – this intimacy. We're enemies after all."

"It didn't have to be that way," was his terse reply.

"Of course it did," she retorted. "My personal feelings about…you, however complicated, have no bearing on how I feel about the First Order – or your role in it. You made an offer you knew I couldn't accept. It's as simple as that." Perhaps she was imagining it, but Rey thought she saw his shoulders tense.

"Have it your way," he snapped, but he still refused to turn. "Is there a reason you've trespassed on my solitude this evening?"

"Just trying to determine how concerned I should be about the First Order's presence at a Resistance general's funeral."

"The First Order doesn't have a presence here."

"Well, you're here."

"I'm not here on behalf of the First Order."

"Ah, so Ben Solo came for his mother's funeral," Rey said softly. "So there _is_ still light in you. I thought as much."

"That's not my name."

"Yes, it is," Rey insisted, "and I'll see you reclaim it one day, or I'll die trying."

He turned to face her then, fury flaring in his dark eyes, and she felt the bond between them pull tight as the full force of his emotions flooded her mind. Sorrow. Anger. Pain. Shame.

Fear.

He was afraid. For her.

"You will _not_ sacrifice yourself for someone who does not deserve to be saved," he snarled.

"Then don't force me to!"

She'd backed him into a corner – they both knew it. Now, she pressed her advantage by taking a physical step closer. So close she could see the pain in his eyes and feel the heat of his breath on her cheek.

"You may have closed the door between us," she whispered, "but I can still feel your pain. The way it keeps you up at night. How badly you long for peace." Rey put her hand over his heart, felt it stutter at her touch. "In here." Then she spread her arms to encompass the star-streaked heavens above. "And even out there. You don't have the heart of a killer, Ben Solo. You are not what you pretend to be." He flinched, and she paused before adding, "And you miss your mother."

"I do not," he hissed.

"Do too." She could see the sheen of tears in his eyes; feel the grief he'd tried so hard to push aside. But, grief wasn't such an easy thing to ignore. If it was, he wouldn't be here, dressed not as the Supreme Leader of the First Order, but as…a nobody. In clothing that would allow him to blend in with the crowd so he could grieve his mother's loss to death in a way Snoke surely hadn't allowed him to grieve their separation in life. "It's okay," she whispered, cupping his cheeks with her hands and forcing him to look at her face.

Something in her touch – or perhaps her eyes – seemed to push him over the edge, and he collapsed to his knees, pulling her with him into an awkward half-hug. Then the Supreme Leader of the First Order buried his head in her shoulder and cried.

Rey had no idea how long she knelt there on the cobblestone street while a conflicted killer cried on her shoulder. She just knew that by the time he stopped, her knees were numb and the sky was completely dark. It was dark enough that she couldn't see his face as they separated, then sat side-by-side, backs to the wall of whatever building abutted the near side of the alley. "I'm sorry," he said stiffly. "I shouldn't have done that."

Rey sighed. "What? Shouldn't have reacted as any human would to the loss of his own mother? You're a man, not a machine, Ben."

"That's not what Supreme Leader Snoke always said."

"Supreme Leader Snoke is dead. You killed him, remember? Terrible, terrible creature," she muttered.

"Rey, where are you?" Finn's voice crackled from the comm in her pocket, and Rey jerked away from Ben as she frantically searched the folds of her skirt for the device. "You said you'd be back an hour ago. Poe's ready to send a search team out for you."

_No, no, no, no,_ she thought. _Don't say anything else, Finn._ Rey was almost positive Ben Solo would not hurt _her_ (and even if he tried, she knew she could take him in a fair fight), but she couldn't say the same thing about her friends. They were still on opposite sides of a war, after all, and that meant he would press any advantage he could. She had to leave. Now.

"Sorry, gotta go," Rey hissed at Ben as she scrambled to her feet and ran back the way she came without so much as a "see you later." She felt his irritation through the bond, but there wasn't anything to be done about it. There was no way she would risk putting the Resistance in any more danger, not even for the chance to say a proper goodbye. By the time she managed to pull the comm free, she was halfway down the alley. "Finn," she said breathlessly, "Don't go anywhere. I'm on my way back now."

"Finally!" Finn sounded frantic. "Where have you been? Did you find the Force-sensitive individual?"

"Yes and no.  I found him, but he's not in a position to help us right now." _It's not a lie,_ she thought to herself. _At least not entirely._ "It took longer than I expected, but I'm on my way now. Tell Poe to fire up the engines. I'm about fifteen minutes out."

"Okay, we'll see you soon."

She ran the whole way back to the _Falcon_ , and as she collapsed into the pilot's seat a short time later, she heard a familiar voice echo in the cockpit, "Until next time."

It sounded suspiciously like a promise.


	2. Rey-sistance is Futile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren says goodbye to his mother and opens the door to another Force bond session with Rey. Shenanigans ensue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Kylo/Ben is less angry/more emotionally stable than what we've seen up to this point in the sequel trilogy. I'd like to think this is because he realized a few things on his knees in the dust after the battle on Crait, but perhaps I'm simply reading more into his character than is really there.
> 
> My vision of Rey, too, is perhaps more compassionate than the source material intended, partly because I see her as more resigned/sad than angry when she closes the door on Ben at the end of TLJ. While I don't consider angry Rey to be an incorrect interpretation, I wanted to explore what it might look like for Rey to be the one to pursue Ben through the bond following TLJ and for Ben to be the one who (at least initially) resists the connection.

The man the galaxy knew as Kylo Ren stood at the mouth of an alley, in the deserted merchant sector of Naboo's capital city, and watched the glowing crescent of blue light at the rear of the _Millennium Falcon_ recede until the ship finally shot off into hyperspace. He clenched and unclenched his fists as waves of long-denied emotion buffeted what little was left of his fragile self-control. Damn that girl and her meddling ways, he thought crossly, even as his traitorous body hummed at the memory of her touch.

  
Three months spent trying to block her out of his mind by way of a carefully cultivated (yet completely fabricated) façade of indifference had shattered into a million jagged pieces the very moment he'd felt her presence in the alley behind him. He wanted to be as furious with her now as he had been during the battle on Crait – when the pain of waking up in Master Snoke's throne room to find she, too, had abandoned him – had been at its most intense, but discovered that he couldn't. The anger and bitterness that had for so long been his best defense had fallen away, undone entirely by something as simple as basic human contact.

  
He sighed.

How was it that this scavenger from Jakku – his equal in the Force in every way – still believed in him? Despite all of the terrible things he had said and done in an attempt to snuff the last traces of light from his soul. Despite walking away just when he had needed her the most.

  
"Either I'm going to kill her, or I'm beginning to like her," he muttered as he stalked down the alley Rey had sprinted down not fifteen minutes before, growling in irritation when he realized he sounded just like his father.

  
His father. The man he had killed in vain pursuit of a master's approval; who had somehow managed to forgive his own murderer even as he drew his final breath. Han Solo's murder was supposed to be the final step in Kylo Ren's ascension to the dark side of the Force. Instead, it had become the anchor that kept Ben Solo tethered to the light.

  
But he hadn't come to Naboo for his father, or even for Rey. He had come to bid farewell to his mother. And now that it was dark and the crowds in the street below were finally beginning to clear, it was time for him to pay his respects. Kylo walked briskly, and before long the narrow roads of the merchant sector gave way to the wider thoroughfares that ringed the public square. He kept to the shadows as he hurried down the street toward the gold-domed mausoleum at the far end of the massive main square and slipped silently through a side door. The building was larger on the inside than it had appeared on the outside and more than a little creepy with its long, neat rows of glass-topped caskets each backlit by a small orb of warm yellow light. The occupants inside the caskets were in various states of decomposition, and Kylo paused in front of his grandmother's only long enough to note that she looked remarkably good for a woman who had been dead for more than fifty years.

  
His mother's casket had been slotted neatly into place next to Padme's, identical to the rest in the row save for the fact that its occupant looked so real – so alive – compared to the rest that Kylo could have easily believed she was merely sleeping. But, of course, he knew she wasn't. He stood with his legs spread wide and hands clasped behind his back, held immobile by the enormity of the moment, as he looked upon his mother's face for the first time in years.

  
She'd aged since he'd last seen her. There were fine lines around her eyes that hadn't been there before, more gray in her elaborate bun than brown. And yet she still looked every inch the princess, every bit the politician, and the general – all the things that had taken her away from the son who had needed her, just when he had needed her most. But for all that he hated her, hated his father, hated his Uncle Luke, there remained a spark of love in him – for all of them – that simply refused to die.

  
He would allow himself only a few minutes to say goodbye. It was all he could afford to spare, and besides, there wasn't much to say other than "I'm sorry" and even that was a loaded statement. When his time was up, Ben splayed his hand across the still-warm glass and whispered a quiet goodbye. Almost as an afterthought, he added a barely audible "May the Force be with you."

  
He felt as dried out as an old husk, the last of his grief spent on a warm shoulder in an empty alley in a display so shocking he was afraid he'd never live it down. The Supreme Leader of the First Order crying on the shoulder of a scavenger from Jakku. How humiliating. Hux would have gladly killed an entire battalion of his own Stormtroopers to witness such a blatant show of weakness on the part of his superior. The arrogant little bastard was always watching, most likely waiting for the perfect opportunity to stage a coup; which was all the more reason Kylo needed to leave Naboo as soon as possible and get back to First Order business.

  
As he retraced his steps back to the small, unmarked freighter he'd stolen from the impound bay aboard the _Finalizer_ , Kylo's thoughts once again returned to Rey and the Force bond that still connected them. He'd made every effort to ignore it, much as he had tried over the past three months to ignore all memories – both good and bad – of the spunky scavenger girl, although apparently, he hadn't done quite as good a job of it as he had initially thought.

  
The last Jedi knew things about him she shouldn't know. Dangerous information that could prove deadly if it fell into the wrong hands. Perhaps he'd gotten lazy now that Master Snoke was no longer constantly digging around in his thoughts in search of weaknesses to use against him. Or perhaps he'd left his mind open because some small part of him had wanted – maybe even needed – to let her in. If she wouldn't join him, perhaps she might at least be persuaded to understand him. The thought was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.

  
"Until next time," he'd whispered through the bond just before he'd seen the _Falcon_ take to the sky. As he fired up the freighter and readied it for take-off, setting a roundabout course back to the _Finalizer_ , Kylo decided that "next time" had come. He needed to see her again, needed to feel her touch. Something in her soothed the beast within, some fundamental part of his soul that had been broken long ago by the uncle who had momentarily lost faith in him and the cruel master who had exploited him in the aftermath.

  
He was finished trying to admit he could survive without her, that they weren't broken halves of the same whole the Force itself had seen fit to bring together – no matter what Master Snoke had said about his role in the whole affair. Even if comfort and companionship were all that ever came of this bond between them, it would be well worth the cost.

  
Kylo sat for hours in the cockpit after the freighter entered hyperspace before he finally gathered the necessary courage to force his brain to tell his feet to make their way to the rear of the ship where there was a small multi-purpose living area set into the corner of the empty cargo hold. He sat on the narrow bunk, back straight, hands resting stiffly on his knees and cleared his throat, knowing he needed to act quickly before he lost his nerve entirely. "Rey," he whispered in a shaky voice. No response. He cleared his throat and tried again, only this time he gave a gentle tug on the invisible thread that bound them.

  
He felt the air around him electrify as it filled with the sound of breathing that was not his own, then Rey blinked into existence in front of him. She rubbed her eyes and stared at him in confusion. Had she been sleeping? She must have been because instead of the elaborate gown she'd worn on Naboo she was dressed in a thin white shift that left precious little to the imagination. Kylo felt his cheeks warm and immediately turned his head to the side, squeezing his eyes shut for good measure. "I – I'm sorry," he stuttered, "I thought –"

  
"No, no, it's okay," she said quickly. "Don't go anywhere. I'll just…I'll just put something on." He could have sworn he heard her mutter "a cowl or something" under her breath.

  
"Were you sleeping?" he said to the wall. "I didn't mean to…I mean I didn't realize I could, or rather, I didn't think the bond worked like that."

  
"It doesn't." Rey's voice was muffled, as if she was in the middle of dressing, or maybe searching for something to put on. Kylo was sorely tempted to peek but didn't. "Or, at least, I don't think it does. As near as I can tell, based on the little bit of experimenting I've done, we can only talk face-to-face if both parties are willing now that Snoke is no longer interfering with the connection. That's a good thing, by the way. Could you imagine how awkward it would be if one of us caught the other one bathing?"

  
Kylo's eyes popped open. "Bathing?"

  
Rey laughed. "You can look now," she said. When he turned his head, she was sitting on the ground in front of him, covered neck to toes in a thick, wool blanket. Wanting to be closer to eye level, Kylo scooted off the bunk until he was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her, their knees almost, but not quite, touching.

  
"So, if we both have to 'approve' the connection," he said, "how did we connect just now if you were sleeping?"

  
Her cheeks flushed. "I might've been leaving my mind open to the bond, you know, just in case."

  
He raised a brow. "Don't you think that's dangerous?"

  
Rey shrugged. "You tell me. I'm not the one who's been playing hard to get."

  
Kylo stiffened. "Wait just one minute!" he growled. " _You're_ the one who turned _me_ down."

  
"Yes, I did," she said quietly. "And as I said back on Naboo, I didn't have a choice. You put me in an impossible position. But, just because I turned down your offer to rule the galaxy together doesn't mean I don't care. I've been worried about you, Ben."

  
He swallowed the lump in his throat.

  
"I can feel your pain sometimes," she whispered, and there were tears in her eyes now. "It's agonizing. I can't imagine the nightmares you must have."

  
Kylo cleared his throat. "What – what else can you feel?" he croaked.

  
"The conflict," she whispered, "between the dark and the light. Regret for the terrible things you've done. Uncertainty about your current course of action and rage at how little control you have over any of it. You took over the First Order because circumstances demanded it, but now that you have it, you have no idea what to do with it. You're in over your head."

  
"Stop!" he thundered, flinching as the harsh cry echoed in the empty cargo hold. "I've heard enough. What are you going to do with this information?"

  
"What do you mean?" she asked, seeming genuinely confused.

  
"I assume you're planning to use it against me somehow."

  
"I hadn't really thought about it," she admitted. "If you must know, I'm rather invested in trying to figure out a way to save you. Assuming, of course, that you don't put me in a position where I have no choice but to do otherwise."

  
"Why?"

  
"Why what?"

  
"Why try to save me at all?"

  
"I thought that was rather obvious." Kylo just stared at Rey as if she was out of her mind, and she cleared her throat self-consciously. "Okay, then. Perhaps not so obvious to most…" He frowned, and she let out a little huff of annoyance. "Okay, fine! It's not obvious to anyone. I'm literally the only person left alive in this galaxy who thinks you're worth saving, and that's only because we have this super-freaky psychic Force connection that allows me to see inside your mind. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

  
"I mean, you're a colossal mess," she continued pragmatically, "but you're not hopeless. In fact, the real Ben Solo," she said as she leaned in dangerously close…close enough that he could feel the heat of her breath on his lips. "I _like_ him."

  
He was pretty sure he wasn't breathing.

  
"But," she plopped back down, and his breath returned in a dizzying rush, "none of that matters as long as we remain on opposite sides of this ideological divide. I won't cross to the dark side for Kylo Ren. I can't." Rey smiled sadly. "I won't give up, not as long as there's hope, but I can't be with –" Kylo didn't want to hear what was coming next, so instead he silenced her with a kiss. The kiss was as exhilarating as it was awkward and – in Kylo's honest opinion – ended much too quickly…that is until she kissed him back. One moment he was staring dazedly into her shocked hazel eyes and the next she was on her hands and knees in front of him, the blanket slipping from her shoulders to pool forgotten at her feet. She was as fierce a kisser as she was a fighter, simmering with passion and completely, utterly unaware of her own vulnerability.

  
He was pretty sure her impulsive nature would get her in trouble one day if it hadn't already. By the time the kiss ended, she was on his lap, knees straddling his waist, and he had his hands tangled in her hair. They were both breathing hard. This was quite possibly more awkward than the night Uncle Luke had caught them together. After a long moment, she cleared her throat.

"That's, um, not exactly what I meant to have happen here. I don't, ah, want you to get the wrong idea…because, you know, I really don't make it a habit of kissing my enemies. But, then, you did start it –" She stopped midsentence and cocked her head, as if listening to another voice, one he couldn't hear.

  
"Just a minute!" she called, then turned back to him, an unlikely combination of relief and guilt evident on her face. "So sorry! I've got to go, someone's coming. We'll, uh, talk later." Then she winked out of sight.

  
The ship felt strangely empty without her.

  
Kylo pulled himself to his feet with a long, labored sigh. It was a good thing he had a modicum of control over his end of the connection because he was very much in need of a long, cold shower, and he definitely didn't need an audience.


	3. The Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chewie plays concerned dad, Finn is in love, and Rey gets a visit while on late-night KP duty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies - this chapter is really short. Although I started writing chapters three and four simultaneously, four is the point at which the plot really started taking off. It's also the point where I realized I could craft an entire story out of what I had instead of writing just a few fun scenes. So three ended up being kind of a bridge to get me back to Kylo/Ben's POV so I could do what needed to be done plot-wise. It's sentimental, fluffy, kind of fun, and you might never wash dishes in quite the same way again. Enjoy!

Rey hurried to the door of her tiny room, deep in the bowels of the abandoned resistance base on Crait, hoping against hope that whoever stood on the other side hadn't heard any of her exchange with Ben Solo. _That would be embarrassing,_ she thought, _not to mention traitorous._ And probably extremely dangerous for both of them. She needed to be more careful. The walls dividing the dorm-style rooms were quite thin and the stone cavern in which they were situated prone to echoing.

After retrieving her blanket and wrapping it securely around her body, she finger-combed her hair and fanned her flushed cheeks before opening the door just a crack. With any luck, whoever stood outside wouldn't be able to tell she'd just thoroughly Force-kissed the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

When she saw Chewie's shaggy head, Rey breathed a sigh of relief. Chewie knew more than anyone about what had happened on Ach-To, and later in Snoke's throne room, and as far as she could tell, had chosen to keep it to himself. She trusted him to keep her secrets more than anyone else in the Resistance, even Finn.

Of course, she hadn't told the Wookiee about the full extent of the bond, just that she and Ben Solo could communicate using the Force. She'd had to give him some explanation as to why they were fleeing Ach-To and a very angry Luke in the middle of the night, especially when she got to the part about how she needed him to man the _Falcon_ while she shipped herself to the _Supremacy_ all wrapped up in a disconcertingly coffin-shaped package. To Chewie's credit, he'd asked very few questions, a result, she supposed, of decades spent as Han Solo's second-in-command. 

Chewie growled a soft greeting, and she felt the sting of tears in her throat at the concern evident in his tone and the gentle look in his eyes. "Did I wake you?" she asked. "I'm sorry. I talk in my sleep –"

He interrupted her with another series of growls and a few guttural moans.

"Okay, fine," she admitted guiltily. "I was talking to Ben. But, what am I supposed to do? He doesn't have anyone else to talk to, and his mother just died, and –"

He interrupted her again, this time with a low whine.

"Yes, I know he's the Supreme Leader of the First Order, but he's also Han and Leia's only son! I can't just abandon him."

The Wookiee's eyes were sad, even as he shook his head and let out a rather stern-sounding moan.

Rey looked at him, horrified. "No, I certainly will not tell Finn what's been going on! He used to be a Stormtrooper," she hissed. "He'd never understand why I'm doing this, and he'd never forgive me for it either."

"Tell me what?" Finn asked as he stuck his head out of the door across the hall.

The Wookiee howled in response.

Finn threw up his hands and shook his head in helpless frustration. "You know I don't understand a word you just said."

 Rey sighed. _I'm giving him Wookiee lessons starting today,_ she promised herself. "Go back to bed, Finn," she said, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders before opening the door wider. "I'm sorry we woke you."

"Oh, you didn't wake me," Finn said cheerfully. "Rose and I are sneaking up to the surface to watch the sunrise. You should come with us. It's beautiful."

Rey smiled. "Not today, thanks. You guys have fun. But, be careful up there, okay? Just because we assumed the First Order wouldn't think we were stupid enough to actually come back here after the battle doesn't mean they're not running patrols over the planet anyway. We've underestimated them before. Stay hidden and keep an eye out for anything suspicious."

"Yes, ma'am," Finn saluted her with a lighthearted smile that should have been criminal at such an early hour then took off down the hall.

Rey shook her head. "That boy has it bad," she said to Chewie. "It's so adorable."

She startled when Chewie pulled her out the door and into a bone-jarring hug. He thumped her back a few times with his hairy fist as he growled a soft response in her ear, quiet enough that only she heard.

He was halfway down the hall – heading in the direction of the mess hall – when Rey shout-whispered after him, "Hey! What do you mean he's not the only one?"

The Wookiee just shook his head and kept walking.

#

Three days later Rey was scrubbing pots in the empty mess hall, enjoying the solitude that always came with late-night KP duty, when she felt a tug on the bond. It was bolder than the last had been, and she gave a quick glance around the large room to ensure it was empty before giving an equally bold tug back. The air around her grew thick with expectation and the sound of heavy breathing as Ben Solo appeared some distance in front of her, back in black and scowling at something she could neither see nor hear.

"Good evening, Ben," she said, trying to pretend her heart rate hadn't tripled the minute he'd flickered into sight. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

He must not have been in a talkative mood as he just stood there and studied her without saying a word. Rey stared back for a long, uncomfortable moment. When it appeared obvious the infuriating man had no intention of speaking anytime soon, she huffed and turned her attention back to her chores, scrubbing twice as furiously as she had before.

"What on earth are you doing?" he finally asked, in a tone Rey thought sounded unnecessarily rude.

"Washing dishes, of course. I should think the scrubbing motion would be obvious, even if I'm the only thing you can see."

"What is one of the two most powerful Force users in the galaxy doing washing dishes?" he sputtered, incredulous.

Rey arched a scornful eyebrow at Ben. "We didn't all grow up in the lap of luxury, you know. I've spent my entire life trading scavenged parts from old Empire ships for barely enough food to stay alive. I'm no stranger to hard work, and I don't mind getting my hands dirty. And," she continued, cutting him off before he could try to interrupt, "I would feel that way no matter how strong I was in the Force. Even if I didn't, thanks to you and your men, there are precious few of us left. We all have to do our part to keep things running."

"Well," he huffed, "in the First Order, we have Stormtroopers to do such menial labor."

"Oh, you mean people like Finn that you steal from their families as babies and then brainwash into doing your bidding?" she retorted.

"The Stormtrooper program wasn't my idea," he muttered. "The brainwashing part of it was Hux and Captain Phasma's pet project, one that has apparently been less than successful if FN-2187's continued presence in your ranks is any indication."

Rey smirked. "That one still stings, does it?"

Kylo Ren just growled and stalked closer skirting the large sink she stood at as if he could sense it, even if he couldn't see it. Closer and closer he came, until he stood just behind her, close enough that she could feel his breath stirring the delicate hairs on her neck. Closer still until Rey felt Ben's chest pressing against her back. She shivered as the rush of irritation she'd sensed along the bond melted into something infinitely more dangerous.   

"What are you doing?" she squeaked, suddenly breathless.

"Watching you wash dishes," he murmured.

"Well, you're standing awfully close."

"That's because I want you to show me how it's done."

"Show you how it's done? How –" Rey gasped, the hair on her arms standing on end as he ghosted his hands from her shoulders all the way down to her wrists, his larger body enveloping her smaller one in a head-to-toe cocoon of delicious warmth.

"Like this," he said as he positioned his hands parallel to hers and began to slowly, carefully mirror her movements.

It was like a dance, the way his entire body moved in concert with hers – as if he could anticipate what she would do next before even she knew. They had fought the same way in Snoke's throne room, as partners perfectly in sync, despite the fact that they had only ever fought as adversaries, never together.

Rey scrubbed and rinsed and stacked to the rhythm of his breath warm in her ear and the cadence of his heart as it pounded a steady beat against her back. She didn't pull away, not even when she ran out of things to wash, and strangely, neither did Ben.

Finally, he whispered, "I have to go now. Hux is on the line." And just like that, he was gone.

As she stood in the lingering heat generated by a body that had never actually been in the room, Rey felt more alive than ever. And yet – in the sudden absence of Ben Solo's inexplicably solid presence – she also felt incredibly lonely, much more so than she had been even as a girl on Jakku. The knowledge was both exhilarating and terrifying.


	4. The Broken Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren has trouble concentrating at work. Hux makes a move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey, is that the start of a plot I see there?

Kylo Ren's roundabout journey back to the _Finalizer_ had – out of necessity as much as convenience – involved four stops: a surprise visit to a former First Order-controlled mining colony with known Resistance ties (where he'd traded the freighter for his command shuttle and the rags he'd worn on Naboo for his typical all-black ensemble) and three Stormtrooper training facilities that had all recently reported suspected Resistance activity.

The story of his humiliation at the hands of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker had spread through the galaxy like wildfire in the last three months, resulting in a flood of support for the Resistance and severely undermining his role as the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Hux, of course, mocked him mercilessly about the entire affair – but only from well outside choking range.

At the moment, though, Kylo wasn't thinking about rebellious Stormtroopers or First Order politics, he was thinking about Rey and that damn kiss. In fact, he'd been thinking about it for three days straight. It was bad enough the memories kept him awake at night, but the flashbacks even interfered with his work during the day. He'd be in the middle of questioning a suspect and then, between one blink and the next, he was back in that freighter, being kissed with an altogether frightening intensity.

It really needed to stop. Several times, he'd shaken himself out of a memory only to realize he'd just let a suspect go free with nothing more than a mild warning. One time he'd opened his eyes to discover he was perilously close to kissing the very Stormtrooper he was supposed to have been interrogating. He'd easily used his Force powers to wipe the offending memory from the man's mind, but it was much harder to eradicate the lingering feeling of compassion each flashback left in his own.

It was obvious this girl wasn't just getting to his head. She'd wormed her way into his heart as well. Interrogating prisoners called for a clear mind and a firm hold on one's emotions, and right now he had neither. Thanks to Luke Skywalker's sacrifice and FN-2187's inside knowledge of the Stormtrooper program, the Resistance was gaining traction across the galaxy. If they succeeded in their efforts to foment rebellion from within the Stormtrooper ranks, they could deal a devastating blow to the First Order. Kylo needed to have his wits about him now more than ever; which meant he didn't have time for distractions.

He needed Rey out of his head once and for all. But how? Perhaps he could visit her one last time and say or do something so awful she'd leave him alone for good. Or perhaps his ardor would cool if he could allow himself to visualize Rey passionately kissing someone other than himself. Someone like Jabba the Hutt. He'd practically grown up with the story of his father's rescue from the infamous crime lord. As a small child, Ben would cheer every time they got to the part where Leia had choked the gangster to death with the very chain Jabba had used to restrain her.

 It was a good story, but…Kylo shuddered. He didn't hate himself enough (or maybe he liked Rey too much) to imagine her kissing a creature quite so revolting. He would visit her again that evening and find a way to break the fragile alliance that had somehow grown between them. This time for good. With the decision made, Kylo returned to the list of suspects the institute's commander had handed him that morning and called the next name. A pair of guards brought a female Stormtrooper in and strapped her to the interrogation table. The Supreme Leader cracked his knuckles and got down to work.

When it came to interrogating prisoners, Hux tended to shoot first and ask questions later, but Kylo preferred a much more precise approach, ripping the information he needed from the minds of those directly involved and leaving the rest to fear that they were next. Contrary to the reputation he'd earned as a result of his volatile temper, he only killed when absolutely necessary. The First Order lost fewer able-bodied workers that way, and he slept a lot better at night.

By the end of the day, Kylo had worked his way through the list and was confident he'd rooted out the source of the rebellion: an undercover Resistance operative – who had clearly received information from the traitor FN-2187 – and a handful of Stormtroopers he'd somehow managed to recruit to his cause. The Stormtroopers he'd had publically flogged and sent to reconditioning, but the Resistance operative was another matter entirely. He was spending the night in a cell in the institute's detention area. Kylo intended to bring him back to the _Finalizer_ for further interrogation first thing in the morning.

Meanwhile, he had a visit to make.

#

The next morning Kylo watched as a pair of Stormtroopers loaded the Resistance prisoner onto his shuttle and a half-dozen flight engineers readied the ship for take-off. His late-night Force bond session with Rey had been an utter disaster from start to finish. Not only had he failed to eradicate her from his mind, he now had an irrational urge to spend most of his time washing dishes.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried to turn the girl against him. He'd scowled. He'd insulted. He'd said mean things to irritate her…and she'd countered every time. He'd even tried to intimidate her by getting into her personal space.

That, of course, had been his fatal mistake.

He might have still been standing there like an idiot doing absolutely nothing but enjoying Rey's presence had Hux not holocommed him for an update on the interrogation. Kylo had given him one, although he found the request highly impertinent (and had told Hux just that). Secretly, though, he'd been happy for the interruption. After signing off with Hux, he'd spent an unsatisfying night trying to imagine Rey with a Hutt, and when that hadn't worked, _as_ a Hutt. He shivered now at the memory. 

The final leg of the journey to the _Finalizer_ was uneventful, although full of vivid distraction. Kylo had just stepped off the shuttle's ramp and into the massive star destroyer's landing bay when an unexpected blow to the back of his head sent him to the ground on his hands and knees. A swift kick between his shoulder blades and he went crashing the rest of the way to the deck where a boot pinned him in place while his hands were wrenched behind his back, wrists secured in a pair of high-voltage handcuffs.

Kylo twisted his head in an attempt to see his assailants but stopped as soon as he heard the sizzle of a laser ax next to his ear and felt the heat of the sparks as they danced against the back of his neck. No, he did not want to move his head. If he did, he would lose it.

He tried to use his Force powers to subdue those who threatened him, but the blow to his head had left him too disoriented to concentrate. Whoever had planned this attack had done so very carefully. And Kylo had walked right into it. He'd been so preoccupied with thoughts of Rey he had neglected to pay attention to his surroundings as he exited the shuttle. The number one rule to surviving the First Order was to always watch your back. And this was why.

There was no doubt in Kylo's mind who was behind the attack. Hux had been gunning for this opportunity for a very long time, although Kylo did wonder how many troops the double-crossing general had managed to ally to his cause in the process. Someone jerked him roughly to his feet, and he stumbled, vision spinning as he struggled to take in the endless rows of Stormtroopers filling the massive hanger. He heard the whine of several thousand blasters charging and his heart sank as he realized every single weapon in the room was pointed at him. This was so much worse than he could have anticipated.

He heard the click of boots on metal and then Hux was standing before him, an arrogant grin on his smug little face. To his surprise, the inimitable (and apparently unkillable) Captain Phasma stood at his shoulder. Hux snapped his fingers, and Phasma punched Kylo in the face, following it up with a vicious kick to his solar plexus that left him gasping.

The chrome-plated trooper was preparing for round two when Hux held up his hand and said softly, "That's enough for now, Captain Phasma. There will be plenty of time for torture later." Then he turned to the assembled troops and said in a loud, clear voice, "Kylo Ren – you are hereby under arrest for treason and are to be stripped of the title of Supreme Leader immediately."

"What are the charges?"

Hux rewarded him with a truly evil-looking smile, then leaned forward and drawled, "Why, killing Supreme Leader Snoke and consorting with known members of the Resistance, of course." Kylo swallowed audibly and Hux threw back his head and laughed. "You thought you could blame it on the girl, didn't you? I might have believed you – and indeed I did for a time – were it not for a certain video file that showed up in my chamber, courtesy of a very helpful thief named DJ.

"Did you know Supreme Leader Snoke had cameras in his throne room, and that the footage is automatically downloaded to a server at a remote location?" Hux asked. He shook his head. "You thought all evidence of your betrayal went down with the _Supremacy_ , but, in fact, it did not. Not only did you kill Supreme Leader Snoke and his Praetorian guards, you offered the girl – the so-called 'Last Jedi' – a place at your side, and when she refused, you allowed her to get the better of you and then get away.

"Furthermore," he continued, "you have been in contact with the girl several times since, including at your mother's funeral; _Resistance General_ Leia Organa's funeral." Hux drew near and whispered so only Kylo could hear. "I have it on good authority that this 'bond' between you and the girl – this Rey of Jakku – allows you to communicate across vast distances. How very sweet. Do you fancy yourself in love with her?"

 Kylo lunged at Hux with a low growl, but the general only laughed and flicked his wrist. Phasma pressed a button and the handcuffs activated, sending a jolt of electricity arcing through Kylo's body. It was all he could do not to scream as he stiffened involuntarily. "Now, now, watch the temper," Hux crooned. Turning back to the assembled troops, he said, "Let it be known that I hereby strip Kylo Ren of the title of Supreme Leader of the First Order. I, General Armitage Hux, am your new Supreme Leader. You will pledge your allegiance to me this very moment, or you will die."

As one, the troopers beat their right arms twice against their armored chests and said in unison, "We pledge our allegiance to Supreme Leader Armitage Hux." 

Hux turned to Kylo, with the might of the First Order at his back, and said, "Now, this is what is going to happen. I will rain terror across this galaxy in your name. I will place a bounty on the girl's head for the murder of Supreme Leader Snoke and send every bounty hunter from here to the Outer Rim after her and those Resistance dogs she calls friends until she is in chains and every last one of those accursed rebels is snuffed out of existence."

"Don't forget FN-2187," Phasma snarled. "You promised me the right to break him myself."

"Yes, yes," Hux said, waving a dismissive hand at his second-in-command. "Never fear, you'll get your rogue Stormtrooper back."

"You'll never catch her," Kylo gasped. "She's too smart, too powerful in the Force to ever be captured by the likes of you."

"That is where you are mistaken," Hux said. He took a careful, deliberate step toward his prisoner and whispered, very softly, in his ear, "because I have _you_ , and _you_ have a direct connection to _her._ "

  "I can control the connection," Kylo panted, "I can close it and you'll never get it open, not without my consent."

"Oh, we'll see about that," Hux smiled, slow and feral. "I am so going to enjoy torturing the great Darth Vader's grandson. There are so many things I can do to make you scream. I'll try them all, and we'll see what it takes to make you break. And then, when you're in so much pain, you can't hold back anymore, you'll open the connection, and she'll come running just like she did the first time. The naïve little girl who thought she could save the great Ben Solo. She'll come, and when she does, I'll crush you both."

He turned to Phasma and barked, "Put the traitor in a cell and make him wish he was dead." Then Supreme Leader Armitage Hux turned on his heel and stalked away without another word.

As Phasma dragged him away, Kylo locked the doors of his mind one-by-one, knowing the only way he could possibly keep Rey safe was to put mental shields in place that would block her completely, without warning or even a word of explanation. She wouldn't understand, hell, knowing Rey, she'd worry about him incessantly, but he would do it anyway because he would die before he brought her into this. He'd told her he wouldn't let her sacrifice her life for someone who didn't deserve to be saved, and he'd meant it.

They didn't make it easy. For three months they tortured him. Hux and Phasma would bring him to the point of death only to snatch him back from the edge at the very last second. Then they would nurse him back to health just enough to tear him apart all over again. The duo kept him in such a constant state of agony, he had no choice but to focus all of his limited mental energy on enforcing the shields he'd placed around his bond with Rey.

Although he could have used his well-honed arsenal of fearsome mental abilities to break free or even attack his captors, doing so would mean dropping the shields, leaving the bond – and therefore Rey – vulnerable to attack, and he refused to let that happen. Just once, he'd actually managed to scrape together enough energy to open the doors of his cell without also compromising the shields only to run straight into an invisible high voltage barrier. The shock had knocked him unconscious and he'd woken up hours later, shackled to the wall of his cell, with a raging headache and a nasty burn where his hand had come into contact with the barrier.  

Kylo Ren found Ben Solo in that cell – and made his peace with him, too – but even their combined will wasn't enough in the end. One day, at the end of a particularly gruesome torture session, his shields slipped the tiniest bit – just enough to let the girl in – and the last thing Ben heard before he slipped into unconsciousness was the sound of Rey screaming.   


	5. Confession...and a Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey's new lightsaber is temperamental. Poe and friends stage an intervention during which Rey discovers confession is good for the soul, but self-sacrificing supreme leaders are not. Porgs make an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your next installment is coming a couple days early in honor of May the 4th (be with you). I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> A note about kyber crystals and double-bladed lightsabers: I Googled. I fell down the rabbit hole. I determined there's a whole lot of disagreement within the online fandom about what's probable/possible when it comes to using the broken kyber crystals from the Skywalker lightsaber to build a new saber (specifically, a double-bladed lightsaber...which is apparently not a very practical weapon, never mind the fact that it looks awesome). I went with the simplest solution, even if it wasn't technically canon-compliant or even particularly sensible. Because Rey needed a double-bladed lightsaber made from the old Skywalker saber. She just did.

The kyber crystal that had powered the Skywalker lightsaber had darkened to a deep cobalt blue as soon as Rey removed the pieces from the broken hilt. She'd done everything the Jedi texts said to do in order to stabilize them inside their newly constructed home, but it seemed broken crystals were temperamental creatures.

No matter how many times she tweaked the saber's internal mechanics, the blades still hissed and popped and threw off distinctly violet-hued sparks. It was almost as if the crystal itself had picked up some of Kylo Ren's essence when it cracked in two during their battle for control of the saber in Snoke's throne room. Rey wasn't at all sure what she thought about that possibility, much less the niggling fear that the temperamental saber was responding to something it sensed in _her_ instead.

When spun, the glowing twin blades were a truly impressive sight, so savagely beautiful a mere glimpse of them arcing through the air often sent unsuspecting visitors running for cover. Only now, after months of near-constant use, had the weapon finally begun to feel like an extension of Rey's body. She never left her room without it.

Still, Rey worried about the weapon's safety and had sought Ben's advice on the subject on several occasions, only to encounter a wall between them, unlike anything she'd sensed before. As far as she could tell, the thread connecting them was still there, it was Ben himself that was inaccessible. According to the Jedi texts, blocking a Force bond required an incredible amount of skill and control that should have been impossible for all but the most consummate Force user.  

While there was no doubt Ben Solo was powerful in the Force, was he truly _that_ powerful? And if he _was_ blocking her, why had he done it? The knowledge stung a little given their last interaction, which Rey thought had gone rather well – or at least as well as an evening spent washing dishes could go. But, perhaps Ben had felt differently.

Then, the First Order – with a newly-masked Kylo Ren at its helm – began to unleash hell on the galaxy in a very orderly, very systematic, very un-Kylo Ren-like fashion. The masked monster who callously cut down swathes of innocent civilians in the scratchy Resistance holofeeds was so unlike the emotionally conflicted, deeply damaged man whose thoughts and feelings she had known so intimately that Rey soon grew concerned.

Had she finally lost Ben Solo to the dark side or was someone else impersonating the Supreme Leader of the First Order? Both options were equally terrifying. Unfortunately, no one in the Resistance wanted to hear any of her conspiracy theories when she could offer no actual proof to back up her claim, especially once the insufferable man put a bounty on her head for the murder of Supreme Leader Snoke.

Finn and Poe had tried to use her new status as "most wanted woman in the galaxy" to ground her from missions, but she had continued to go anyway, albeit under heavy disguise and always with Chewie along for extra security.

Now, after a quick shower and lunch in the mess hall, Rey made her way to the command center – an old storage room they'd cleaned out and filled with an eclectic mix of tables and chairs, an old holodisplay, and a haphazard assortment of maps and charts – just in time for what she thought was a regularly-scheduled afternoon strategy session.

Instead of the usual hodgepodge of Resistance leadership (cobbled together from the remnants of Leia's Resistance, new allies, and Empire-era rebels they'd coaxed out of retirement), Rey found only her friends. Rose and Finn. Poe and Chewie. BB-8 and a family of Porgs who had chewed through the stuffing in Poe's favorite chair and were now incubating an egg there.

Rey narrowed her eyes as she walked into the room. "What's going on? I thought we had a meeting today."

"We do," Finn said.

"Then where is everybody?"

"This is everybody," replied Poe.

"I don't understand."

Rose put her arm around Rey's shoulder and squeezed. "We just want to talk to you about a few things."

Rey frowned. "Please tell me this isn't because you're still concerned about my safety. I already told you I can take care of myself."

"I don't think you understand what we're dealing with here," Finn said. "Ren's always been a little unhinged, but this is madness, even for him. A third of my guys didn't even make it to the meeting because their covers were blown. This is the fourth time in the last three months our operatives have been compromised and then killed without even so much as an interrogation. We're losing people faster than we can replace them."

"I'm truly sorry," Rey said, "really I am. But what does that have to do with me? My recruitment missions are completely separate from Finn's undercover operation."

"Because Ren's escalating, and for whatever reason, he's placed you in the center of his bullseye," Poe replied. "You're too valuable an asset to lose. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ground you to the base until further notice."

"You can't!" Rey exclaimed. "The Resistance needs my help."

"The best way for you to help the Resistance is to stay alive. If this is about you feeling useful, then start that Jedi training school we talked about. You can do it right here on Crait. You've found what – at least a half-dozen Force-sensitive kids in the last six months alone? They'll make for a good start."

"I'm not qualified to train them. I'm not even fully trained myself. Besides, training these kids will take years. The fight is now."

Poe stepped closer until he stood nose-to-nose with Rey. "I'm sorry," he said firmly, "but as the ranking officer in this organization, I am ordering you to stand down until further notice."

Rey raised her chin and stared at Poe with a calmness that belied her racing heart. "No."

"You're going to defy a direct order from your superior?"

"If I have to, yes."

"Why?"

"Because, if Kylo Ren really has gone dark," she said, "you know I'm the only person who stands a chance at defeating him. And if he's not, well, then _he's_ going to need my help. Either way, I'm not going to do anyone any good sitting around here teaching younglings how to move rocks with their minds and training for a battle you never intend to let me fight."

Finn threw up his hands. "What do you mean _if_ he's gone dark? What makes you think there's any good left in that monster? We _watched_ him kill Han on Starkiller Base. And now you're talking about helping him?"

"You don't know everything, Finn."

"We don't know because you won't tell us!" Finn roared in frustration. "All I know is that it sounds an awful lot like you're planning on attempting to save the guy who's literally trying to exterminate us."

"It's not that simple –"

"It is _exactly_ that simple, Rey. You forget I was a soldier in the First Order. I know things."

"Apparently not everything," she muttered.

Chewie growled, and Finn looked at her in horror. "What does he mean 'maybe it's time to tell them the truth'? What truth?"

"Oh, _now_ you've finally figured out how to understand Wookiee?" Rey snapped at Finn before turning and glaring at Chewie. "Traitor!" she hissed between her teeth.

"If you know something, just tell us," Poe barked, massaging his temples. "We don't have time for games."

"Fine, I'll tell you. But you have to promise to listen to the entire story with an open mind. And none of what I tell you can ever leave this room. Promise me."

Poe, Finn, Rose, and Chewie nodded. BB-8 beeped his assent. Even the Porgs squeaked in agreement.

Rey took a deep breath, then blurted, "Apparently, Ben Solo and I share something called a Force bond, which means we can communicate over long distances using the Force."

Three humans, one Wookiee, a droid, and a family of Porgs gaped at her in astonishment.

"Pardon me," Finn choked, "but did you just call Kylo Ren _Ben Solo?_ "

"Is that all you got out of what I just said?" Rey asked.

Finn gave a noncommittal shrug and said, "Well?"

"Yes, I called him _Ben,_ " Rey said, "because that's his name."

"Not anymore," Poe said. "Not after what he did to Leia. Losing Han broke her heart."

"And there's not a day that goes by he doesn't regret it," Rey murmured.

"How do you know?" Rose asked gently.

"I know because I lived with his thoughts in my head for three straight months. Ben Solo is a deeply conflicted man who still feels a strong pull to the light."

"Or he's a psychopath who only wants you to think he's human," Finn argued.

Rey shook her head. "That's the thing. Even if Ben _has_ fallen completely to the dark side, I'm not sure he's capable of masterminding such a cruel and well-organized terror campaign. That's not the way his mind works. I know you remember what it was like the first few months after Snoke died – all the rumors and the obvious disorganization. How has he managed to turn everything around so completely in the past few months? It doesn't make sense."

 "You have a point," Poe admitted as he paced from one end of the room to the other and back again. "But, I'm not entirely certain it's enough to convince me Kylo Ren is anything more than a murderer and a madman, albeit one with intelligent advisors."

"There's more," she said softly. "Remember how I told you he killed Snoke?"

"Of course," Finn said. "He wanted to take over the First Order."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps he valued my life more than Snoke's. Either way, Ben defied a direct order from his master to kill me."

"Tell us something we don't know," Rose said.

"Okay. You know he defied an order from his master," Rey continued, "and killed him. What you don't know is that afterward, we teamed up and killed Snoke's guards, and when they were all dead, Kylo Ren begged me to rule the galaxy with him."

"He what?" Finn asked, horrified.

"He asked me to rule the galaxy with him."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Because we understand each other. Because he's lonely. Because –"

"Oh, Yoda save us all!" Finn exclaimed. "He's in love with you, isn't he?"

"That's not the point!" Rey said.

"On the contrary, I think that's exactly the point," Rose said under her breath.

"I couldn't take him up on his offer, of course," Rey continued, ignoring Finn's outburst and Rose's pointed stare. "But he had my lightsaber, and we fought over it. It knocked us both unconscious when it shattered. I woke up first and got away, but –"

"Wait a minute," Poe interrupted. "If he was still unconscious when you awoke, why didn't you just kill him right then and save us all the trouble?"

"I thought about it, but in the end, I couldn't bring myself to do it."

"Don't tell me you're in love with him, too," Finn groaned.     

"No, I’m not!" Rey insisted. Poe arched a skeptical eyebrow and BB-8 beeped suggestively. "Okay, fine," she admitted. "Maybe…just a little."

"This is a disaster!" Poe exclaimed.

"I'm not done yet," Rey whispered.

Finn pretended to plug his ears. "Tell me when it's over."

"He showed up at Leia's funeral."

"Leia's funeral?" Finn sputtered. "On Naboo? So, when you said you were going to see a Force-sensitive individual, you were talking about _Kylo Ren_? The Supreme Leader of the First Order Kylo Ren?"

"If that's what you insist on calling him, yes."

"Are you insane?" Finn roared. "That man is our enemy!"

"He might be an enemy to the Resistance, but Leia was still his mother. Ben was grieving, and I offered him a shoulder to cry on. Other than that, all we really did that night was talk."

" _That night?_ " Finn said through gritted teeth. "As your surrogate brother, I would like to know what, exactly, is the nature of this Force bond?"

"We can see each other," Rey admitted. "And apparently also…touch."

Chewie growled a question.

"Yes, with our _lips_ too." Rey was blushing now. Rose's jaw dropped, and the Porgs stopped fluffing chair stuffing long enough to stare at her with unnaturally wide eyes.

"Spare us the details, please," Poe snapped. "Is there any chance he saw enough of your surroundings to be able to figure out our location?

"If he had, the First Order would have found us by now," Rey snapped back. "Give me some credit. I would never put the Resistance in danger like that. The bond is very specific. All we can see is each other."

"How often has this been happening?"

"Four – no five – times on Ach-to, once just before we escaped Crait on the _Falcon,_ and twice since Leia's funeral. Then, he somehow managed to block me three months ago – which according to the Jedi texts is nearly impossible for any but the most accomplished Force users – and there's been no activity from his end since."

"Is he dead?" Finn asked hopefully.

"I don't think so. I'm pretty sure I'd know if something like that happened."

"So what, exactly, are you trying to tell us?" Rose asked.

"I think there's been a coup in the First Order, and whoever's running the show now wants the galaxy to believe Kylo Ren's still in charge."

Poe and Finn looked at each other. "Hux!" they exclaimed simultaneously.

And that's when Rey started to scream.

#

This time, the bond had activated with barely any warning at all. In the space between one breath and the next, Rey had gone from talking with her friends to screaming in a muted sort of agony, body convulsing in reaction to abuse she instinctively knew wasn't actually happening _to_ her, but that she could feel just the same. When the pain finally eased enough for the room to come back into focus, she fell to her knees in front of a familiar form – bruised, bloodied, and crumpled in a heap on the floor.

"Ben," she whispered, pulling his head onto her lap and gently brushing the hair from his face. "What have they done to you?"

His eyes fluttered open. "Rey!" he gasped. "You can't be here. Go away."

"Not until you tell me who's doing this to you. If you do I can save you, I know I can. Please," she begged, "before they kill you."

"N – no," he panted. "I'll die before I let him find you." And then the connection snapped.

When Rey looked up at her friends several long moments later, there were tears streaming down her cheeks, and her throat felt raw from screaming. Rose knelt by her side, concern evident in her dark brown eyes. Chewie was howling, BB-8 beeped frantically, and both Finn and Poe looked angry enough to kill someone.

"What. The hell. Was that?" Finn asked furiously.

"That was Ben being tortured," she said wearily, scrubbing the tears from her face with clenched fists. "I was right. He _has_ been blocking me," Although the worst of the pain had passed, Rey could still feel the echo of Ben's agony deep in her bones and it was almost more than she could bear. "They're torturing him – they've _been_ torturing him. He's blocking the connection so I can't feel it. The idiot is trying to keep me safe."

"That might be the first smart thing he's ever done," Poe muttered. "Okay, so Kylo Ren is officially no longer in charge of the First Order. How can we use that to our advantage?"

"There is no advantage in this," Finn snapped. "Kylo Ren might be unhinged, but Armitage Hux is a stone-cold killer. If he's running the First Order now, the whole galaxy is in trouble."

"So, what do we do?" Rose asked. "How do we stop him?"

"I have an idea," Finn said. "But it's risky."

"Anything is risky at this point," said Poe. "Tell us what you've got."

"Well, first, we need a distraction – something big enough to require Hux's full attention. Then, when his back is turned, we activate our trooper sleeper cells and hope like hell we've managed to turn enough soldiers to mount a successful strike against the First Order. I think the only way we're going to win this is if we take him by surprise."

"I like it," Poe said, tapping his finger against the edge of the holodisplay thoughtfully. "But what do you suggest we use as a distraction?"

"Oh, that part's easy," Rey said with fierce determination as she squared her shoulders and palmed her lightsaber. "All we've got to do is find the nearest bounty hunter, and then you can leave the rest to me."


	6. A Spark, Ignited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux likes to torture people. Ben runs into a few old friends. Rey and Ben are never better than when they've got each other's backs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: I suck at writing fight scenes. Why drag things out when you can summarize? Also, it leaves more time for kissing. Which, incidentally, I also had trouble writing. Many thanks to my friend, Kristen, who encouraged me to write this fic in the first place and who also challenged me to add a bit of detail to this chapter's kissing scene. Also helpful: music. Fight scenes courtesy of Human Race by "Three Days Grace" and kissing scenes courtesy of "She's Like the Wind" by Lumidee.

The second time Ben Solo saw Rey handcuffed was just as difficult as the first had been. Only this time, he was in a decidedly less advantageous position than he had been in Snoke's throne room. His body was a mess of clotted blood and bruises, and he was in so much pain he couldn't even stand up straight.

Captain Phasma had appeared in his cell just a short time before and woken him from a restless sleep with a series of vicious chrome-plated kicks to his torso. Then, she'd wrenched his arms up so far behind his back while cuffing him he'd almost blacked out from the pain the motion sent ricocheting through his freshly cracked ribs.

The constant crackle of electricity he could hear coming from the high-voltage cuffs meant they were set to "kill" so he made every effort to keep his shackled wrists well away from the rest of his body as Phasma jerked him to his feet and used her quicksilver baton to prod him out the door of his cell and into the hallway of Detention Level 4. Technically speaking, a shock from the cuffs at this setting wouldn't, in fact, kill him – at least not immediately – but it would make him _wish_ he were dead. Which meant Phasma took great joy in repeatedly jostling him as she loaded him onto the freight elevator for the trip to Hux's "laboratory" deep in the belly of the _Finalizer_.

Ben had been to Hux's laboratory – a custom-designed torture chamber outfitted with a metal table and a dizzying array of tools and other devices useful for everything from experimenting on "defective" Stormtroopers to tinkering with broken droids – more times than he could count in the past three months. Not surprisingly, he had nothing but bad memories of the space with its blood-spattered walls (no small amount of which was his) and the drain in the middle of the cold metal floor.

He shut his eyes tightly as Phasma pounded on the door, the boom! boom! boom! of her metal-plated fist echoing up and down the deserted hallway. The door whooshed open and Phasma shoved him inside, hard enough to send him stumbling into another body. Ben's eyes popped open in surprise. Hux's torture sessions were typically not so well attended. There was always a pair of guards stationed outside the door for security, but otherwise, it had only ever been Ben, Hux, and Phasma in the room.

Six black-clad, black-masked figures filled his vision, and he sensed at least three more people in the room who stood outside of his immediate line of sight. The six masked figures stood in a semi-circle with their backs to him. All of them had their weapons drawn. Ben snarled when he realized the one he'd bumped into held his red lightsaber, which Hux had confiscated at the time of his arrest three months before.

All six figures turned as one at the sound, and Ben reared back in surprise when he came face-to-face with six identical versions of…himself. Every single one of them wore his mask and his uniform. Other than slight differences in height and build, they were nearly indistinguishable from one other – and more importantly, from Kylo Ren.

So, Hux had finally found Ben's Knights of Ren. And put them to good use, apparently. This must be how the sniveling little bastard had been able to frighten the galaxy into believing Kylo Ren was still Supreme Leader of the First Order.

Once upon a time, Ren's Knights had been Jedi-in-training until Ben had convinced them to turn the night he burned his uncle's Jedi temple to the ground. Put his lightsaber in any one of their hands and they could give a convincing performance, despite the fact that none of them had chosen to continue their training in the Force the way Ben had.

That they were here now, in this room and under these circumstances, meant only one thing: Hux had claimed their loyalty. Whether it had been by choice or by force wouldn't matter. To the Knights, power was everything. There would be no turning them from this course now, not for the sake of an old master – or even an old friendship.

This turn of events did not bode well for Ben's chances of survival. Although the Knights weren't experts in lightsaber technique, they were deadly with their weapons of choice. As their master, he'd insisted on it.

Before he could give voice to any of these thoughts, Phasma shoved him into the center of the circle and straight into a nightmare. When he finally regained his balance and his bearings, Ben realized he was standing next to a girl. A beautiful girl dressed as a desert scavenger, one who radiated poise and confidence despite the fact that she had a half-dozen weapons pointed in her direction. He was pretty sure there was only one girl in the galaxy that bold.   

"Rey," he breathed in shock, and her head whipped around at the sound of his voice, even though it had been barely audible. She didn't say a word, but he saw the look in her eyes that said she was relieved to find him still alive, if somewhat worse for wear. _What is she doing here,_ he wondered, _and why has she come?_ He had told her not to come.

A bounty hunter stood at her side – a big, hulking thing with a bulbous nose, webbed feet, and bright blue tentacles for hair. Ben's anger flared when he saw the beast held a thick chain in one meaty hand. The other end had been attached to a metal ring around Rey's neck. Her wrists and ankles were also shackled. Other than a few bruises and scrapes, she seemed in surprisingly good shape given the circumstances. Then again, if the bounty hunter was handing her over to Hux he doubted she would stay that way for long.

_If this guy's smart_ , Ben thought, _he'll collect his money and clear out before Hux decides he's better off dead._

A few minutes later, after an unsuccessful negotiation for a bounty two times greater than the advertised amount, the creature's head hit the ground with a hollow thud, and Ben came to the conclusion that the bounty hunter was not, in fact, all that intelligent. How had he ever managed to capture Rey in the first place?

 "You're right, the bounty hunter was as dumb as a mynock, and a complete boor, too," Rey whispered. "And just so we're clear, I let myself get caught."

"Did you just read my mind?" he hissed.

"I couldn't help it, you let your shields drop again," she murmured. Ben immediately snapped them back into place. Rey sighed. "I know what you're doing, and you don't have to keep doing it. I can handle the pain, I promise."

And perhaps she could, but he couldn't. He'd barely been able to handle watching Master Snoke torture her on the _Supremacy_. Although muted, he'd felt it then, the echo of her pain, just as he knew she had felt his during their brief Force connection in his cell. How much worse would that pain be now if he failed to keep the shields in place?

As it turned out, it didn't matter because it wasn't Ben Phasma strapped to the torture table a few minutes later. It was Rey.

"You have the information I need to finally destroy the Resistance once and for all, and I'm going to get it from you by any means necessary," Hux promised as he selected a scalpel from a tray of gleaming instruments. He motioned to the Knights, "Bring Ren closer. I want to see just how deep this alleged bond runs." Then he lowered the scalpel and made the first cut.

Ben roared in outrage and lunged for Hux only to be stopped short by the sting of a whip as it wrapped around his neck and yanked him back. He felt the tip of a sword in the small of his back and heard the buzz of his stolen lightsaber off to his right as the Knights closed ranks.

"Do that again," Phasma snarled, holding up the remote that controlled his cuffs, "and we'll see how it feels when both of you are tortured simultaneously." Ben forced himself to appear outwardly calm, compliant even as he watched Hux work while inwardly he destroyed his mental shields one-by-one and willed his Force powers to return before it was too late.

It was agonizing being forced to watch Rey suffer knowing – at least for the moment – he was powerless to stop it. Ben knew from personal experience how well Hux had mastered the art of inflicting excruciating pain with an almost delicate precision. He'd always known just when to stop torturing Ben – how far he could go before causing permanent damage – so that while Ben's body was now crosshatched with scars, his important bits and pieces were all more or less intact and in working order.

Ben watched Rey's body arch off the table, arms and legs straining against the metal restraints and willed his exhausted mind to recover faster. He didn't know how much longer he could watch as she screamed herself hoarse from the pain, stubbornly refusing to say or do anything that would endanger her friends. Master Snoke had been able to compel Rey to tell him Uncle Luke's location on the _Supremacy_ because he'd had a superior ability to control both her mind and body. But Hux had no Force sensitivity. His methods were much more primitive.

By the time Ben had regained enough control over his abilities to snap the lock on his restraints, blood dripped from dozens of cuts along Rey's arms and legs, and tears rolled off her cheeks and made small puddles on the cold metal table. Before the broken pieces of the cuffs had a chance to hit the ground, he'd whirled around and reached with his mind for the as-yet-unnoticed weapon still clipped to the fallen bounty hunter's belt.

The weapon – a lightsaber unlike any he'd seen before – flew effortlessly in his direction, and Ben hit the ignition switch as soon as he had it in hand. His rage, stoked to a white-hot inferno by the sight of Rey's blood and tears and the echo of her pain, burned as brightly as the cobalt-colored blades that erupted – one from each end of the weapon's hilt – in a shower of violet-hued sparks.

He pivoted back toward Hux with the lightsaber at the ready only to find the Knights had moved along with him and now had him surrounded. Not only were they too close for him to successfully engage in combat with the long-handled saber, they had cut off his access to both Hux and Rey. Once again, he was trapped.

Just then, the holocomm on Hux's wrist beeped, freezing everyone in place. Hux jabbed a button on the communication device and a life-size hologram of a First Order officer appeared in front of him. "What is it?" Hux snapped, clearly irritated at the interruption.

"Supreme Leader Hux," the officer stammered. "I'm sorry to bother you, but we have a situation on the bridge."

"What sort of situation?" 

"I believe it's what's known as a mutiny, Hux my boy," an irreverent voice answered from somewhere off-screen. Hux's face turned purple when a moment later, Resistance leader Poe Dameron stepped into view.

"How did you get on my ship?" the Supreme Leader screamed.

"Oh, well, see, that's the thing," Poe said with a grin. "We knocked on the back door and your Stormtroopers just let us in. It seems a good number of them think you're a terrible leader and have decided to join my boy Finn over here in the Resistance." 

 "You won't get away with this!" Hux ripped the holocomm off his arm and hurled it at the wall. Poe's smug face blinked out of sight as the device shattered. Then, Hux turned to Phasma and growled, "Call up every Stormtrooper who's still loyal to the First Order and have them meet us in the main hanger. You," he motioned to the Knights, "Don't let Ren or the girl leave this room alive." With that, he turned on his heel and stalked from the room, Phasma marching two steps behind.

As soon as the door sealed shut the Knights spread out and took up a fighting stance. Ben stood between the six best fighters in the First Order (second to him) and a still-restrained Rey, injured and holding a double-bladed lightsaber he didn't even know how to use correctly. "I have a bad feeling about this," he muttered as he quickly calculated his odds of freeing Rey and getting his lightsaber back before one of one of his look-alikes managed to end his life.

The odds were not good. Not good at all.

But the only way out was through, so Ben lunged at the Knight with the whip first. He barely dodged his opponent's initial strike, but anticipated the next, ignoring the sting of torn flesh as the leather whip wrapped neatly around his raised forearm. Then, he ripped his arm back, causing the startled Knight to stumble right into a spinning arc of lightsaber blades. His technique was clumsy but effective, and his first opponent fell to the ground in a pile of disconnected body parts. One down, five to go.

Ben held the lightsaber in one hand and the whip in the other, keeping a careful eye on the five remaining Knights as he backed closer to Rey and hit the switch that would release her restraints. They popped open with a click, and she was off the table and by his side in seconds.

There was barely enough time to extinguish Rey's lightsaber and toss it her way before the fight began again. Ben went after his stolen lightsaber next, snapping the whip at the Knight's sword arm in an attempt to disarm him. A short time later, he was on the verge of losing the fight when he heard a voice in his head tell him to move. He ducked out of the way as one end of Rey's lightsaber arced through the air where he had just been standing and took off the Knight's arm at the elbow.

The Knight reared back in pain, and Ben lunged for his falling saber. He hit the ground in a roll, grabbed the weapon by the hand that was still holding the hilt, and sprang back up in a crouch, all in one smooth motion.

Hurling the amputated arm in one direction and the now-unneeded whip in the other, Ben stood and found himself back-to-back with Rey as the five – no four – remaining Knights spread out around them, patiently waiting for Rey or Ben to make the next move. The Knight Rey had dispatched before coming to Ben's aid lay in a crumpled heap in the corner of the room. His armless colleague had quickly divested him of his weapon – a spiked mace Ben knew the man was still capable of wielding effectively, even with his non-dominant hand.

 As well-trained as Snoke's guards had been, Ben knew his Knights were even better. They had trained together for three years after abandoning Luke and the Jedi temple before Master Snoke had called for Kylo Ren to come serve at his side. He'd used their skills sparingly in the years since and been sure to keep them well-hidden from Hux otherwise. Clearly, his efforts had been for naught.

The feel of Rey's hand on his thigh shocked him back to reality. "Hey! Are you okay back there?" she murmured, a thread of worry in her tone. "This fight's not over yet."

"Yes," he croaked. _They aren't your friends,_ he reminded himself. _Not anymore. You can do this. Just pretend you don't know their names because you can't see their faces._

Rey reached back again, grabbing his hand this time and giving it a brief, reassuring squeeze before letting go. A lightning-fast sequence of images – past, present, and future – flickered through his mind at the skin-to-skin contact, there and gone in an instant.

Visions of a little boy terrified of the monster that lurked in the shadows. That same boy years later, running headlong into the monster's embrace in the bitter haze of an uncle's betrayal. The day the boy, now a man, finally became a monster, too.

"You're not a monster," Rey said softly. "Your name is Ben Solo. You're the son of Han and Leia, the nephew of Luke, and the grandson of Anakin. You are the sole heir to a powerful legacy of both light and darkness, not to mention of actual royal lineage. But not to me. Not if you don't want to be. To me, you are just Ben."

_Yes,_ he thought.

 "Yes," he whispered, out loud now. "Just Ben." And with that thought to ground him, he pivoted toward the closest Knight and lost himself in a whirlwind of flashing blades and brutal hand-to-hand combat. Stab, slash, spin. Punch, duck, kick. Repeat. Over and over and over again in a beautiful, violent dance until, finally, the last of his Knights fell and he and Rey were the only two left standing, gasping for breath and staring hungrily at each other from across the room.

He felt a sense of déjà vu as he extinguished his lightsaber and stalked toward Rey, still high on the adrenaline of battle. But this time, he wasn't the only one moving. And this time, neither of them stopped. They collided in a tangle of arms and legs as their lips met in a searing kiss.

The moment wasn't perfect. How could it be when she was covered in blood, and he could barely lift his arms above shoulder level? But somehow, none of that mattered. What mattered was the way her slim body fit just so against his, and the feel of her hands as she tangled them in his hair. The faint scent of desert flowers that clung to her skin, even in the aftermath of battle and the worst sort of torture, and the way she leaned into his kiss, always wanting more.

He might have stood there kissing Rey forever had Poe's harried voice not come blaring over the ship-wide comm several minutes later. "Rey! If you're still alive down there, hurry it up. We could use you on the bridge."

They pulled apart immediately, and Ben decided then and there that Force kissing had nothing on the real thing. "Fight's not over yet," Rey gasped. She looked down at her arms and legs, which were still oozing blood. "Although I'm kind of a mess. Got any bandages?"

"Better," Ben laughed (when was the last time he'd laughed?) as he hurried toward the far side of the room. "Hux keeps a medkit on the shelf under the torture table. Ironic, I know. But I happen to know there's a blood-clotting agent in there that'll stop the bleeding and some pain meds, too."

"Do I want to know how you know these things?" Rey asked.

"Not even a little bit. Now let me see your arm." He administered the injections – two to Rey and one to himself – and quickly bandaged the worst of her cuts. Then they grabbed their lightsabers and headed for the door.

Ben knew the corridors this deep in the belly of the ship didn't see much foot traffic from anyone but the occasional mechanic (be it droid or human), which gave him and Rey just enough time to quickly and quietly trade stories as they limped along. "Okay, so you got picked up by a bounty hunter," Ben said after Rey had finished with her side of the story, "and Finn's sleeper cells let your guys in through the back door, but how did the Resistance find the _Finalizer_ in the first place?"    

Rey flipped the hem of her tunic to reveal the blinking blue light of a tracking device. "Let's just say they followed the trail of breadcrumbs I left."

"So you were the bait," Ben said angrily.

She shrugged, "If that's the way you want to look at it. Finn said they needed a distraction, so I provided one."

"Yes, but there had to be any number of ways the Resistance could have caused a distraction that didn't involve you turning yourself in to be tortured."

"Perhaps, but _I_ needed more than just a distraction to get close enough to save you."

"Why even bother trying to save me in the first place?" he asked. "I was literally your enemy."

"I told you that on Naboo," she said over her shoulder. "Now keep walking, we've got to get to the bridge."

Ben rushed to catch up, ignoring the lingering pain in his cracked ribs the med injection hadn't been able to completely alleviate. "But, _I_ told you on Naboo I wasn't worth saving."

Rey shrugged, "I disagreed."

"How did you know I'd turn back to the light?"

Rey stopped so fast he almost ran into her back. Hesitated. Then said softly, "I didn't." She pivoted and looked up at him. "But it doesn't matter because I believe you're worth saving no matter what."

The world stopped as the girl stepped closer. Stood up on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear. "A very dear friend told me once that hate doesn't win wars. Love does. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, through all of this mess, it seems I fell in love with you. Maybe it was Ben Solo. Maybe it was Kylo Ren. Most likely, it was a little bit of both. Either way, I didn't have it in me to give up on you, not as long as there was even the smallest spark of hope you could be saved."

Ben lifted a trembling hand to her cheek. Cupped it gently. "Do you know what I saw back there when we touched hands?" he whispered hoarsely. She nodded, but he told her anyway. "I saw the two of us standing together – as equals. I saw light and dark in perfect balance flowing through both of us. This time, it wasn't about taking sides – not the way it was before. We weren't ruling the galaxy at the head of the First Order or even fighting for the Resistance – although I'm sure we'll do plenty of that before the day is over." He rested his forehead against hers and let out a shaky breath. "It was just the tiniest glimpse of the future, so I don't know exactly what will happen. All I know is that I want it."

"Yeah," Rey whispered. "Me too."

He kissed her quickly. Once. Twice. Three times. There wasn't time to linger, so he pulled away, took her hand, and then he said, "The one thing I do know is that if we want that future, we're going to have to fight for it. So, are you ready?"

Rey nodded. "Lead the way, Mr. Solo. Let's go find the future."


	7. The Resistance Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All parties converge on the bridge as the battle for control of the Finalizer reaches its climax.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to my twelve-year-old son who used his Battlefront expertise to help me strategize the First Order's attack on the bridge, who gamely allowed me to use him as a model when I needed to act out a particular move to see if it was physically possible (it wasn't), and who came up with the (brilliant, yet simple) solution.
> 
> Final chapter coming Friday, May 18th.

Rey stood with her back against the wall in a deserted hallway within shouting distance of the _Finalizer's_ main bridge. Just to her right, Ben balanced precariously on a small ledge set part way up the steeply sloping wall attempting to wrestle the metal access cover off of a ventilation shaft that ran along the ceiling above their heads. As the only hallway that led to the bridge was currently overrun with First Order troops, Rey had suggested the ventilation system as an alternate route – assuming they could manage to gain access.

The trek from Hux's laboratory to their current location had already taken them through engineering, a half-dozen detention levels, and a multi-story Stormtrooper training facility. They'd skirted carefully around the main hanger, which had been crawling with flight engineers and Tie Fighter pilots and tiptoed silently through multiple levels of personnel quarters, where – Ben had whispered – the majority of the ship's non-combat personnel should be quarantined per attack protocol. At long last, they had ended up in a little-used maintenance hallway that dead-ended a short distance from their destination.

Rey heard a muttered curse followed by a loud scraping sound and looked up in time to see Ben's legs disappear inside a square-shaped hole in the ceiling. Finally! A moment later, he extended his arm down through the opening. Climbing on the ledge he'd just vacated, Rey stood on her tiptoes, grabbed Ben's hand, and jumped. 

Once they'd eased the access cover back into place, they crawled carefully on their hands and knees through the cramped, dark passage, pausing every so often to peer through the air vents set at regular intervals along the shaft. Through the narrow openings, Rey saw an increasingly worrisome sequence of events. Hux, Captain Phasma, and several senior officers surrounded by boxes of munitions. Row after row of First Order Stormtroopers. A ragged line of Resistance fighters exchanging blaster fire with First Order troops from behind a haphazardly constructed barricade. Dead bodies littering the floor.    

"We need to hurry," Ben whispered. "Those Resistance fighters aren't going to last much longer. Hux and Captain Phasma will blow the door to the bridge just as soon as they have access to it, and then your friends will really be in trouble." Rey nodded, and they continued their careful forward motion until they found an access grate that opened onto the back side of the bridge.

All Rey could see from her vantage point was the back of Finn's head and an edge of the recessed pit where the destroyer's complex web of navigation, communication, and weapons control systems were located. The space directly below them was free of people, a relief since the last thing Rey wanted was to end up shot because she landed on some unsuspecting rebel soldier's head.

"I think this is as good an entry point as any," she said. "Let's get this cover off and get down there as quickly as we can."

"Perhaps you should warn them we're coming," Ben suggested as he carefully slid the metal grate away from the opening, exposing an expanse of slick black floor a good distance below them. He grimaced. "I have no desire to get shot by Uncle Chewie a second time. That bowcaster packs quite a punch."

Rey whisper-shouted through the opening: "Finn! Poe! It's me – Rey! Don't shoot, we're coming down." With that, she jumped through the hole in the ceiling, hitting the ground in what she hoped was a graceful crouch. A split second later Ben landed behind her with a rib-jarring thud, which was quickly followed by a drawn-out groan.  

The whine of several hundred blasters charging split the air as Rey pushed herself into a standing position and whirled to see Ben facing a virtual firing squad of First Order troopers, each with a bright red R stamped onto the center of their armored breastplates. Row after row of them filled the perimeter of the bridge, and every single one had his weapon pointed at the former Supreme Leader of the First Order.

_This must be one of Finn's sleeper cells_ , she thought. She went to step between Ben and the troopers, intent on reassuring them he wasn't a threat when someone grabbed her arm from behind and held her back.

"Oh, no you don't," Finn ordered. He turned to one of the troopers. "Confiscate Ren's lightsaber and then cuff his hands _and_ feet," he ordered. "And whatever you do, don't take your eyes off him." He turned to Ben. "Kylo Ren – you are now a prisoner of the Resistance. Make one attempt to escape and you will be terminated immediately, no questions asked." 

Rey was furious. She jerked her arm out of Finn's hold and spun around. "What are you doing?" she cried. "Arresting Ben was never part of the plan!"

"Actually, it was," Finn said, and Rey stared at him in disbelief.  

Gone was the runaway Stormtrooper she'd met on Jakku who wanted nothing more than to get as far away from the First Order as possible. Who had been willing to walk away from the Resistance in an effort to save her no matter the cost. In his place stood a man – confident, brave, sure of his mission and his role in this war. Her best friend: a true hero of the Resistance.

Perhaps that's why his betrayal now hurt so much. But then, should she really be so surprised? Finn, more than any of them, had every reason to hate Kylo Ren and the First Order. _I can't trust him, Rey,_ he'd said their last night on Crait. _And I can't forgive him for the terrible things he's done, not the way you have. I won't stop you from trying to save him, but you'll have to do it on your own. I want no part of it._   

Rey backed away from Finn in horror. She'd led Ben straight into a trap, and it was all her fault. She turned to him now, tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry. I – I didn't know."

"It's okay. Let them do it," Ben said quietly, raising his arms in surrender as a small group of rebel troopers rushed forward. One unclipped the lightsaber from his belt and handed it to Finn. Another yanked his hands behind his back and cuffed them while a third shackled his ankles. The rest stood with their weapons at the ready, alert for any sign of resistance from their prisoner.  

"Are you crazy?" Rey asked Ben. "You can't just give up." When he didn't respond, she turned to the cluster of Resistance soldiers who had gathered behind Finn. "He's with _us_ now. You can trust him. _I_ trust him." Still nothing. Finally, she turned to Chewie, who stood by the door on the other end of the bridge guarding a dozen or so First Order hostages. "Tell them we can trust him, Chewie," she called out. " _Please_." But, the Wookiee just stared at her with sad eyes. His silence spoke volumes.

"Come on, Rey. Did you really expect them to trust me just because you say they can?" Ben asked. "It's too big a risk to take considering the stakes. I would have done the same thing if I were them."

"But you're strong in the Force," she protested. "And we need all the fighters we can get. Besides, you won't have a chance against the First Order shackled like that. Finn might as well sign your death warrant right now."

"It'll be okay," he insisted. Then, in her head: _Stop fighting. This is a battle you won't win. Besides, you had to know the odds of me making it out of this alive were slim._ Rey didn't respond, other than to allow him to feel the full force of her anger and heartache through the bond.

"I never thought I'd say this, but listen to your boyfriend, Rey," Poe drawled as he vaulted onto the walkway from where he and Rose had been monitoring the security feed in the control pit below. "He knows what he's talking about."

Rey stalked over to Poe and poked him in the chest with her finger. "You promised you wouldn't hurt him!" she accused.

"I haven't," he replied softly, "and I won't as long as he doesn't do anything stupid. But be reasonable, Rey. Kylo Ren – Ben Solo – or whatever he's calling himself now may have had a change of heart, but he's still guilty of war crimes against the galaxy. If I let him go I risk losing the loyalty of every man and woman in this room. You know we'll lose for sure if that happens."

Rey's shoulders slumped, but she nodded nonetheless. She knew Poe was right. "What do you need me to do?" she whispered.

Poe never had a chance to respond.

"Everyone duck!" Rose cried as an earthshattering boom shook the entire bridge. Rey hit the deck as the bridge door blew inward. It plowed through the captured First Order officers Chewie had been guarding and nearly took off the Wookiee's arm before coming to rest against a wall on the far side of the bridge.

Rey watched Poe practically throw himself back into the pit in the moments after the explosion and then crawl on his hands and knees over to where Rose still sat at one of the security consoles. She could only hear bits and pieces of their frantic conversation, things like: "…proximity mine" and "…coming in" as well as "…got…stop…" and "…not sure we can."  

Rose looked at the screen again. "Incoming!" she screamed.  

A blinding flash of light bathed the bridge in bright white, accompanied by a sound so deafening the vibration rattled the floor. _What's happening?_ Rey wondered. _I can't see or hear a thing. Has the First Order incapacitated our entire force?_

_Not quite,_ said a familiar voice in her head. _Some of us may be blind and deaf, but we're not all defenseless._

_What do you mean? What do you know that I don't?_

_It's not so much what I know it's what your friend Finn – the former Stormtrooper – knows._

_Okay, what does Finn know?_

_Finn knows that Stormtrooper helmets have built-in eye and ear protection that filters out approximately 90% of the effects of a flash grenade. While a typical blast will incapacitate a person for a minute, maybe two if they were staring directly at the device when it blew, it won't have that same effect on the troopers. So, if Finn's smart, he's instructing them to form a barrier between the unprotected members of the Resistance and the attacking First Order troops. It won't be enough to stop Hux from breaching the bridge, but it'll buy everyone else enough time to recover._

Ben was right. When Rey's vision finally started to clear, she saw a wall of rebel troopers near the entrance to the bridge exchanging blaster fire with a steady stream of their First Order counterparts. Every time a First Order trooper fell, another three came through the door and took his place. Rey watched, still disoriented by the spots clouding her vision, as one-by-one the rebel troopers fell. It wasn't long before a figure covered head-to-toe in silver chrome armor blasted her way onto the bridge. Supreme Leader Hux followed closely behind, using Captain Phasma's blaster-proof armor as a shield.

"I always knew he was a coward," Rey muttered as she lunged to her feet and unhooked her saber from her belt. Although her hearing and vision weren't back to one hundred percent yet, the Resistance didn't have any time to spare. She would have to do the best she could.

It was a near-deadly mistake. Somehow, Ben stopped the stray blaster bolt mere inches from her heart, then grabbed her arm and spun her away a split second before he lost control of the shimmering red beam. It hit the wall behind them and exploded in a shower of fiery light.

Rey used her own body to shield Ben's as he knelt on the ground and tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of his filthy tunic so he could bind the blaster wound on his bicep. He'd saved her life by putting himself in the line of fire. "You could have been killed," she accused.

"If I had been at full strength, I would have easily gotten out of the way before I lost control of the blaster bolt. As it is, you're alive and I only have a flesh wound. I call that a worthy trade-off," he countered.

"It's more than just a flesh wound!"

Ben brushed the backs of his fingertips gently across the side of her cheek and murmured, "Still worth it."

"We don't have time to argue. Just promise me if we manage to make it out of this alive, you'll show me how to freeze stuff like that. It would be a very useful skill to have."

"Anytime," Ben grunted as he used his teeth to tighten a knot in the cloth.

"So, are you going to bother telling me how you managed to get free?"

"What is there to tell? My guards were needed elsewhere."

"And the cuffs?" 

He snorted. "They weren't even high-voltage."

"Where's your lightsaber?"

"Last I saw, Finn had it."

"Then we need to find him and get it back. The Resistance can't very well stop you from fighting now." Rey scanned the room looking for Finn and finally found him in the control pit. He, Rose, Poe, and a handful of Resistance Officers were clustered around one of the ship's communication consoles, hard at work. Even from so far away she could clearly see Ben's lightsaber clipped to Finn's belt. "I see them. They're in the control pit working on phase two."

"What's phase two?" Ben whispered, as they crept to the edge of the recessed pit and dropped silently to the floor below.

_It's our plan to neutralize the rest of the First Order's fleet. You didn't think the_ Finalizer _was the only enemy ship we planned to attack, did you? We have allies spread out across the galaxy waiting for the coordinates of every destroyer in the fleet and sleeper cells on those destroyers ready to be activated on Finn's command. All we needed was access to the coordinates and a fleet-wide communications system, both of which are located on this bridge._

Ben looked impressed, and Rey couldn't help a quick grin in his direction as they zigzagged toward Finn – and Ben's lightsaber – using the abandoned consoles for cover. They had made it about halfway across the length of the control pit when Rey peeked around the corner of one of the navigational computers just in time to see Captain Phasma and a small squad of elite First Order troopers leap to the ground just behind where her friends were working.  

Rey and Ben crept forward, faster now. By silent agreement, each took up a position out of sight but within earshot of the coming confrontation. Rey hid behind a holodisplay that had been hit by shrapnel and now flickered eerily in the smoky gloom while Ben crouched a few arm lengths away on the other side of a security console identical to the one Rose had been sitting at earlier.

Meanwhile, the First Order troopers executed a near-silent attack on their captain's signal. Caught completely off-guard by the elite squad, the rebels were disarmed and cuffed within moments. Captain Phasma ordered her troopers to guard the prisoners – all except Finn – who remained standing, but only because his former captain was holding the business end of a laser ax to the side of his neck. Just when Rey thought the situation couldn't get any worse, Supreme Leader Hux stepped from the shadows, grinning like a maniac. He opened his mouth to speak, but his second-in-command beat him to it.     

"I think it's safe to say you won't escape this time, FN-2187," she announced in a chilling monotone.

"Captain Phasma," Finn said with what Rey thought was a rather unhealthy amount of bravado given the dire circumstances. "Why are you not dead? It seems to me you should be very much dead. Twice over now, if we're being picky. Care to share the secret to your apparent immortality?"

"Not as much as I'd like to know what you've done to my men," she snarled.

Finn's tone was razor-edged, tainted with uncharacteristic malice. "Let's just say we 'sent them to reconditioning.'"

"How?"

Finn paused as if considering what he could reveal that wouldn't jeopardize their mission. "A computer virus," he finally said, "uploaded into the master training program in the form of a pre-recorded message from yours truly wherein we corrected a few common misperceptions among your troops."

"You brainwashed my soldiers into defecting?"

"I gave them the truth, and then I gave them a choice," he growled, "which is a hell of a lot more than you and the First Order ever gave any of us – or our families." Finn stood tall, every inch the confident rebel. Rey felt a renewed sense of admiration as Finn faced down his greatest fear, enough to wash away any lingering resentment over his earlier betrayal.

"You've caused me a great deal of pain, FN-2187." Captain Phasma said. Rey stifled a gasp as she held the ax scant inches from Finn's neck with one hand and ripped her helmet off with the other. Her face and neck were covered with a grotesque mask of puckered burn scars. "And it will bring me great joy," she snarled, moving a step closer, "to now return the favor."  

Finn lifted his chin in defiance. "You may strike me down today, but you won't succeed in striking down this rebellion. The seeds of the First Order's destruction – including yours – have already been sown, and there's not a damn thing you can do to stop it."

"We'll see about that!" Pure hate twisted Phasma's features as she drew back the weapon with a mighty roar. Before she had a chance to strike the fatal blow, Ben sprung from his hiding place, hand outstretched and ready to catch the lightsaber he'd summoned. It shot blood-red sparks as it ignited, and Ben swung it upward in a smooth arc, cleaving his former colleague's head from her neck in a single clean slice.  

The troopers opened fire on their former Supreme Leader before Phasma's body even had a chance to hit the ground – a rapid-fire succession of shots he deftly deflected with his lightsaber. Poe and the other prisoners dove for cover as blaster bolts ricocheted off walls and shattered the screens around them. Rey sprang to her feet, ready to run to Ben's defense, but before she could take a step in his direction, a whip strong arm snaked its way around her neck.

"Not so fast little Jedi," Hux breathed against her ear. "It's well past time I put down your little rebellion, don't you think?"

"Let me go!" Rey hissed as she tried to wriggle free of his grasp.

Hux merely laughed and tightened his hold. "I wouldn't try that if I were you," he said. "It would be a shame if I accidentally broke your pretty little neck." She tried to reach for her lightsaber, but Hux got to it first, wrenching it from her belt and hurling it over his shoulder. It flew end-over-end and clattered to the ground on the other end of the control pit, out of her line of vision and well out of the range of her Force powers. She tried to bite his hand next, but all she got for her trouble was a cuff to the side of the head that left stars dancing in her vision.

Rey heard Ben scream, something that sounded an awful lot like "Stop fighting!" but she didn't realize he was talking to her, not until she felt the burn of back-to-back blaster bolts – one in her shoulder and one in her thigh – as they hit _his_ body. She stilled immediately, just in time for one of the troopers to deliver a vicious blow to Ben's lightsaber hand with the backside of a blaster. She screamed in anger and shared agony as the bones in his hand shattered on impact and he collapsed to his knees, lightsaber skittering across the floor.

  "Oh, now this is truly fascinating," Hux chuckled. "From a purely scientific point of view, of course. Supreme Leader Snoke made it very clear in his journal that this bond of yours was to only function within certain limits. It would seem, however, that the two of you have somehow managed to circumvent those limits."

Hux dragged Rey over to where Ben huddled on the ground, clutching his mangled hand to his chest. The troopers backed away carefully as he kicked Rey's legs out from under her, forcing her to the ground in front of Ben. "I think it's time for a little experiment, don't you?" He reached out with his other hand, grabbed Ben by the throat, and squeezed until Ben and Rey were both gasping for breath.

He smiled in evil delight. "Oh yes, the two of you are _quite_ close, aren't you? Which begs the question," he leaned closer to Ben, pressing even harder against his windpipe, "if I kill one of you, what are the odds I'll get two deaths for the price of one?"  

Ben's eyelids fluttered closed. Rey could feel his heartbeat slowing, and although she gasped for breath right along with him, her own heart pounded out a frantic beat in response. _Wake up, Ben Solo!_ She screamed into his head. _You are not allowed to die. Do you hear me? You are not allowed to go away and leave me alone._

She was crying now as she craned her head to the side, desperate for anything she could use to stop Hux from taking both their lives. There! Ben's lightsaber: lying on the ground not six feet away. Rey concentrated all of her Force energy on the glowing, hissing weapon, guiding it to turn as it flew through the air and landed in her outstretched hand, blade facing backward. All it took was one mighty thrust to bury the weapon in Hux's abdomen to the hilt.

He released his hold on Rey almost immediately, screaming as the blade's fiery cross guard burned through his uniform and the skin on the right side of his torso. Rey pulled the lightsaber free as she pivoted on her knees, then ran him through again – this time straight through the heart. Armitage Hux was dead before his body hit the ground.

Rey crawled back to Ben on her hands and knees. He wasn't moving, and she could barely feel the bond flickering in the back of her mind. He needed medical attention – and soon. But would anybody – Resistance or First Order – even be willing to help him?

She lifted her head to ask if there was a medic nearby only to find she was staring at the business end of a blaster. "On your feet, Jedi scum!" the trooper on the other end growled.

"By whose authority do you speak?" she demanded, rising to her feet and thumbing the ignition switch on Ben's lightsaber. "Your Captain is dead. Your Supreme Leader is dead. And still, you would fight for them? Do they inspire that degree of loyalty then?"

The trooper hesitated. Rey watched him flex his trigger finger in indecision. She willed her shaking arms to hold Ben's saber steady, even as her muscles burned with exhaustion and bright red blood soaked through her hastily applied bandages. Above their heads, the battle for the bridge raged, both sides apparently unaware of the drama unfolding beneath their feet.

Their standoff was so intense, neither Rey nor the trooper saw Finn rise to his feet and shoulder his way through the small crowd of people until he stood between Rey and her adversary, hands still cuffed behind his back.

"Put down your weapons, both of you," he said. "You don't need to fight each other anymore."

"I don't take orders from traitors," the trooper growled.

"You may think me a traitor now, but I was your brother once," Finn replied quietly. "I was stolen from my family as a baby, just like you. Brainwashed by the First Order, and then forced to fight for them, just like you. Made a commodity, one of such little value my jailers didn't even bother to give me a name; just a number. FN-2187. I bet you have a number, too.

"The only difference between us, brother, is that I found the courage to run –" Finn tipped his head toward the row of prisoners lined up against the wall behind the troopers. "– right to these guys." He smiled at Poe. "They gave me a name." He smiled again, this time at Rose. "And then, they gave me a cause to believe in. Freedom from tyranny. Love rather than hate.

"Our cause can be your cause, too. If you so choose. With your help, we can take this ship. With your help, we can end this war. When it's over, I promise you will have your freedom. If you want, Rose and I will do what we can to help you find your families. And should you find that you no longer have a family," Finn continued, turning and locking eyes with Rey as he spoke, " _we_ will become your family."

It was then Rey realized the entire bridge had gone completely silent. It wasn't until later that she would learn it was Rose – seated just to the right of the main communications console – who had somehow managed to flip the switch for the ship-wide intercom just as Finn started speaking. He thought he'd been speaking to the six soldiers standing in front of him. Instead, he'd been speaking to every trooper on the ship.

And just like that, the fight for the _Finalizer_ was over.    


	8. Reckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue you never knew you wanted. Featuring: snarky Luke Skywalker (as a Force ghost), blue milk chocolate, a suave stranger, and Ben's list of life's blessings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have taken a few liberties with the nature of Force ghosts and the history of the hologame table on the Millenium Falcon, but it's all in good fun, right?
> 
> This is it, folks. Thank you so much for joining me on this little adventure. I hope you had just as much fun reading this story as I did writing it. Godspeed and may the Force be with you!

Seven Years Later

Ben Solo stands at the edge of the open desert watching Tatooine's twin suns slip behind a distant sand dune in a blaze of fiery glory. If so many years years spent trying to eke out a living as a moisture farmer on the galaxy's most arid planet have taught him anything, it's to appreciate life's small mercies. Sunset – and the marked relief it provides from the sweltering heat of the day – is certainly the most practical.

But it's by far the only one.

That he is alive to witness this sunset at all is a mercy so profound he still doesn't quite understand how it came about. He'd made his peace with death some weeks before the rebel attack on the _Finalizer,_ alone in his cell on Detention Level 4 with nothing but his memories to keep him company _._ It was, he'd believed, an inevitable side effect of embracing the light after so long spent in the dark. After all, if Hux and the First Order hadn't killed him for his sins, the Resistance certainly would. Second chances were for slaves and soft-hearted smugglers, never for monsters.

Indeed, he'd been at peace with the idea of his death until hope had come in the form of a girl, and with the girl, a vision of a shared future he desperately wanted to live to see. And so he had fought – for the girl and for their future – harder than he had ever fought for anything in his life. Through betrayal and blaster wounds, shattered bones and strangulation. And he hadn't given up, not until asphyxiation forced both the girl and the future from his mind and he'd slipped into the sort of unconsciousness that felt very, very final.    

Ben hadn't expected to survive the _Finalizer's_ fall, much less to awaken days later shackled to a bed in the medical wing of a Resistance ship, his wounds bandaged, and Rey sound asleep in the next bed over. She had rejoined the Resistance soon after, leaving Ben behind in the care of a medical droid who had, thankfully, never been programmed to care one way or the other about his patient's personal politics.   

When he had recovered enough from his injuries that he no longer required regular medical care, Ben been escorted to his new home: a small room on one of the lower levels of the ship that boasted a bed, a writing desk complete with a calligraphy set, a lavatory, and a door that locked securely from the outside. If there were any other humans on the ship, he never saw them. His meals were delivered on time, three times a day by the same persnickety protocol droid who had served his family for many years and whose pessimistic outlook on life had somehow grown even more dour in the years since Ben had seen him last. 

He spent his days doing calisthenics in the small square of space next to his bed, teaching himself how to write with his left hand, and pumping C-3PO for as much information about the war as possible. Every now and then, Rey would materialize in his room in the space between one breath and the next, looking for information – secret codes, the location of hidden bases, little-known details about how the First Order operated – anything that would help guarantee victory against the last of the First Order's hold-outs. He gave Rey everything she wanted and more, not because he thought the information might save his life, but because he knew it would help save billions of others.

Threepio brought news of a Resistance victory with Ben's lunch, six months to the day after the fall of the _Finalizer._ A week later, he woke to find Poe Dameron standing over his bed, a pair of shackles in one hand and a lightsaber in the other. The Resistance leader cuffed Ben's wrists behind his back and then led his prisoner through a maze of darkened corridors to the ship's main hanger. They boarded a small, unmarked freighter and took off, all without a word of explanation.

It was the first time Ben Solo had seen the stars in more than half a year.

Poe had emerged from the cockpit not long after the freighter entered hyperspace and made his way to the cargo hold where he'd cuffed Ben to an old hologame table before take-off. "I'm sure you have questions," he said as he sat.

Ben did. Questions about where they were going and what Poe was doing and whether Ben would get to see Rey again before he died. But he asked none of those things. Instead, he asked the first question that came to his mind: "Have you ever played Dejarik?"

"Dejarik?" Poe looked at Ben as if he'd gone crazy.

He tilted his head toward the hologame table. "I saw this and it reminded me of the one my dad had installed on the _Falcon_ for Uncle Chewie years before I was born. Uncle Chewie taught me how to play Dejarik on it when I was small. He even let me win a few times."

Poe's eyebrows hit his hairline. "He _let_ you win? The one time I almost beat him, the giant hairball threatened me with bodily harm!" 

"Yes, well, I always thought Uncle Chewie's bark was worse than his bite, at least until he shot me with his bowcaster." Ben grimaced. "To be fair, though, I did deserve it."

"You think?"

"Yes, well, while we're on the subject of my rather lengthy list of crimes, where is it you're taking me? Am I going to jail to await my trial? Or are we skipping the trial and moving straight to the execution?"

"You're not getting a trial _or_ an execution."

"Then where –"

"Tatooine," Poe blurted. "I'm taking you to Tatooine."

"What? Why?"

"Honestly? It's the best I could come up with on short notice. In addition to being an Outer Rim planet with an unforgiving climate and an even worse reputation, it's the type of place where few are likely to recognize you and those that do won't care who you are as long as you leave them alone." He shrugged. "Plus, the Skywalker side of your family has quite the history there, or so I've heard. I'll admit, it's not the most pleasant place to have to live out the rest of your life, but then again exile isn't exactly supposed to be pleasant."

 "Why exile?"

"Because Leia wouldn't have wanted to see her only son executed." Poe swiped at his eyes. "And because you did help the Resistance in the end. Quite a bit, actually. I'm not sure we would have won the war without your intel. It wouldn't seem quite right to go and kill you after all that, no matter how much you might deserve it. Plus, it says a lot that you haven't tried to use your powers to escape. I've heard about your prowess with handcuffs and believe me, the ones you're wearing now aren't anything special. You'll have to stay on Tatooine for the rest of your life, of course. If you don't, well, you'll be arrested on sight and tried for your crimes, just like the rest of your former First Order cronies."

"What about Rey?"

"What about her?"

"Does she know where you're taking me?"

"No. I'm not going to tell her, and if I ever find out you did, you'll have your trial, and I can promise you, there will be an execution waiting at the end of it. Rey is destined for much greater things than life in exile with a war criminal would ever allow. If you're anything more than the heartless bastard I've always assumed you to be, you'll let her go. She deserves better."

"She won't appreciate your interference."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take. The galaxy will thank me for it one day. What they won't thank me for is allowing the future of the new Jedi Order to maroon herself on a sweltering sand pit the same way your uncle did on Ach-to. We need her to train the other Force-sensitives we've found."

"Rey's not ready to train others yet," Ben warned. "She's not even fully trained herself."

"At some point, she won't have a choice," Poe sighed. "The Republic 3.0 – or whatever iteration we're on now – won't let her put this off forever."

"That's where you're wrong, Flyboy. If you think the Republic will be able to force Rey into doing anything she doesn't believe is right, you don't know her at all."

If he hadn't been shackled to the holotable, Ben would have taken the opportunity to further insult the Resistance leader by walking away. Instead, Poe did it for him, retreating to the cockpit where he remained until the freighter landed on Tatooine.

They didn't speak again for the rest of the trip.

#

Poe abandoned Ben in front of a modest hut in an isolated corner of the desert planet armed with nothing but his lightsaber, a small bag of food and water, and a crate full of junk they'd collected from the cargo hold of the freighter. The dwelling had once belonged to Ben's namesake – Jedi Master Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi – and had obviously not been inhabited for many years; at least not by anyone who was still alive.

According to the locals, the hut was haunted by a quintet of flickering blue ghosts who seemed to spend most of their time arguing loudly amongst themselves. After an unexpected midnight visit from his holographic uncle and the aforementioned Master Kenobi three nights later, Ben had been forced to agree. But since he had nowhere else to live, he'd learned to put up with the occasional company.

Ben traded the box of junk to a caravan of Jawas for a couple well-used vaporators – enough to construct a small moisture farm that would hopefully provide enough income to keep him from starving. It turned out Uncle Luke knew a thing or two about moisture farming, and as he wasn't the sort to hold a grudge, he happily shared everything he knew with his now-reformed nephew.  

The lightsaber ended up being a good deterrent against Tusken Raider attacks, although it was somewhat less effective against their children. They were as mesmerized by the weapon's glowing blade as they were by the blue milk chocolates he'd taken to bringing back from his monthly supply runs to Mos Eisley Spaceport.

Life soon settled into a predictable rhythm. Ben would work the farm from sunup to midday before retreating to the shade of his workshop where he spent the remaining hours until sundown repairing speeders, droids, and various pieces of farm equipment for his neighbors for a bit of extra income. Evenings were reserved for bookkeeping, training, and – once a week – talking with Rey via the bond.

It was obvious every time he saw her that Rey wasn't happy. As Poe had predicted, the fledgling Republic had tasked her with continuing the search for Force-sensitive individuals, convinced the only way to truly protect the galaxy from future threats was for her to re-establish the Jedi Order as soon as possible.

"I'm not so sure about that," Rey had confided one night as they lay tangled in one another's arms in front of the flickering fire. "Luke told me on Ach-to it was time for the Jedi Order to end. That it was their hubris that had allowed Sidious and Vader to rise during the height of the Jedi Order's power. His hubris that had allowed him to think he could train you, and…believe it was his job to kill you." She'd paused when he flinched at the memory, reaching up a hand to cup his cheek and then trailing her fingers ever so gently through his hair before continuing. "I know what he said came from a place of bitterness and disillusionment, but I can't help thinking he might not have been wrong. At least not about all of it."

"How magnanimous of you," a wry voice said from the corner. Rey and Ben sat up so fast they bumped heads. Ben turned and glared at Uncle Luke.

"Where did you come from?" Rey sputtered.

"Did my nephew forget to tell you his home is infested with Force ghosts?"

"Do you ever get tired of interrupting my private time?" Ben growled. "How long have you been sitting there anyway?"

"Oh, long enough," his uncle said with an unrepentant smile. "I haven't seen anyone kiss the way you two do since that one time I walked in on your parents.

"Ewww! Uncle Luke!"

"What?" Luke laughed. "It's quite an impressive feat considering one of you isn't even physically here."

Rey blushed. "Maybe I should go," she mumbled.

"Please don't leave on my account," Luke said. "I believe you were getting ready to say something profound."

Rey eyed him suspiciously. "If I stay, do you plan on being as difficult as you were on Ach-to?"

"Depends on what you have to say."

"If you want, I can try chasing him out with a broomstick," Ben grumbled.

"Show some respect to your elders, young Ben, or so help me I'll find a way to drink all your blue Bantha milk, Force ghost or not." Luke licked his lips. Ben grimaced as a memory of his uncle drinking Thala-Siren milk on Ach-to flashed through Rey's mind.

_Gross,_ Ben said.

_You don't even know the half of it,_ she replied. Then, out loud: "If we _were_ to create a new Jedi Order, I think some things would have to change."

"Such as," Luke said.

"First, we'd need to abolish the rule prohibiting Jedi from forming emotional attachments. It's antiquated and does more harm than good. Second, we teach balance. I'm no scholar or anything, but in my experience, darkness exists in all of us – side-by-side with the light – and it does no one any good to pretend it doesn't. Third, I finish my training before I even attempt to train anyone else. And fourth, I don't do this alone."

 "Come again?" Ben said. "How are you going to accomplish either of the last two when you're the only Jedi left in the galaxy?"

"Because, I'm not the last Jedi in the galaxy," Rey said pointedly. "As I recall, you offered to train me once. I don't suppose that offer is still open?"

"Are you propositioning me?"

"Yes. Are you accepting?"

"I would if I didn't think Poe would have me executed just for trying. Your friend Finn would probably kill me himself."

"Hello!" Luke waved from the corner. "Force ghost here available for training."

"About that," Rey said. "What are the odds you and your, uh, friends would be available to teach at our school?"

" _Our_ school?" Ben sputtered.

"Yes, I told you I won't do this alone."

"Rey, be reasonable. You know the Republic isn't going to let me anywhere near Force-sensitives. Not with my history."

Rey crossed her arms stubbornly. "They will if they don't have any other choice. Mark my words. I will find you, and then you will train me. In person. In the meantime, we can begin training through the bond." She turned to Luke. "You and all your Force ghost friends are welcome to help if you want. Who all do you have hanging around here anyway?"

#

It took Rey a year to find him.  

She hadn't warned him she was coming, just landed the _Falcon_ on a flat strip of desert within shouting distance of the workshop where he'd spent the morning fixing up an old R2 unit he'd found on his last trip into town. He'd felt her before he'd seen her – that telltale tingle in the back of his mind that was so different from the shiver of awareness he felt whenever they connected via the bond. He'd sprinted out of the workshop and skidded to a stop when he saw her standing there, dressed once again in desert beige, her staff in one hand and her lightsaber in the other.

"You're here," he said breathlessly. "You're really here."

"Of course," she smiled. "I told you I'd find you eventually."

They'd married that very afternoon, in a ceremony officiated by Uncle Chewie (apparently, there were still a great many things Ben didn't know about the Wookiee's colorful past) and witnessed by almost a half-dozen Force ghosts, several of whom were actual family.

Just before the ceremony started, Ben had looked down at Rey in concern. "Are you sure you want to do this? It's really hot here, the sand gets everywhere, and moisture farming is, well, to be honest, it's really boring. And this planet is quite literally in the middle of nowhere."

Rey laughed. "Did you forget I grew up a scavenger on a desert planet? Sand and heat and monotony don't scare me nearly as much as the thought of living the rest of my life without you."

He hadn't argued anymore after that.

When the ceremony was finished, the new Mr. and Mrs. Solo said their farewells to Uncle Chewie as he prepared to board the _Falcon_ for the long flight home. "Give Rose and Finn and little Paige my love," Rey told the Wookiee as she gave him a long hug goodbye. "And tell Poe to stop terrorizing the Galactic Senate long enough to take a vacation every now and again, will you?"

Uncle Chewie howled a response, and Rey smiled up at him through her tears. "I know, I know. I'll miss you too. But the Senate's given you permission to come back once a year, remember? And you never know, maybe one day Ben and I will actually start that Jedi training school, and the Republic will see fit to ease the terms of his exile. Or at least allow you to visit for longer."

Much to Ben's surprise, Uncle Chewie wrapped him up in a hug next. When he was done, the Wookie leaned down and growled in his ear. "I'll take care of her, I promise," Ben whispered.

They stood arm-in-arm and watched the _Falcon_ grow smaller and smaller until it disappeared completely, then returned to the hut. Ben checked all the dark corners to be sure Uncle Luke wasn't hiding somewhere, waiting to jump out at them when they least expected it. As soon as he was sure the room was empty, he grabbed Rey's hand and pulled her closer until there wasn't an inch of space left between them.

Moonlight poured through the open window, bathing Rey's face, the curve of her neck, and one bare shoulder in a wash of liquid silver. Stars above, she looked like an angel. He knew he didn't deserve her – he didn't deserve any of this. And yet there she was – as real as he was and so much a part of him he no longer knew where he ended and she began. They were a hopelessly knotted, beautifully tangled mess, and as they turned circles in the moonlight he knew that if it were up to him, they would stay that way forever.

"Kiss me, Ben," she'd said then, and he, of course, had obliged. Rey tangled her hands in his hair as his mapped the contours of her body, finding and then releasing the linen coverings that wound around her arms and crisscrossed her torso as he went. Then his tunic joined hers on the floor, and it was her turn to explore. He tasted the salt of her tears when she found his scars, gentle fingertips tracing them – one after another – as she listed in a fierce whisper all the terrible things she would do to anyone who ever dared hurt him that way again.

He reminded her – gently – that she'd had a hand in marking him, too, and felt the soft press of her lips against his flushed skin in response. Inch by inch, she worked her way from the base of the jagged scar that bisected the right side of his chest, skirted the edge of his collarbone, and continued up the side of his neck. Then Rey stood on the tips of her toes and tilted his head forward just enough to continue along the line the Skywalker saber had cleaved through the skin of his cheekbone. She pressed a tiny kiss against his closed eyelid before following the mark to its endpoint in the middle of his forehead.

"I'm sorry," she whispered against his skin, "that I caused you so much pain."

"I'm not," he replied, and despite everything that had happened between them, he knew he spoke the truth. Kylo Ren had been soundly defeated that day on Starkiller Base by a nobody from a nowhere planet. A mere slip of a girl with no training in the Force and no idea of the depths of her own power. While he would always bear the guilt of his choices prior to that moment – killing his father, wounding Finn – he didn't regret the fight in the forest or the wounds he carried as a result. He couldn't. Not when they had led him to this very moment.

Ben swept Rey into his arms, carried her into the bedroom, and with a twitch of his head, used the Force to shut – and lock – the door behind them. He didn't want the ghosts of the past – real or imagined – to get any bright ideas.

When morning came and Rey was still there, still real, he added his new wife to his growing list of life's small mercies. Two years later he added the name of their firstborn son.

#

Ben's so engrossed in watching the suns set, he doesn't hear Rey come up behind him, but he knows she's there as soon as he feels that telltale tingle in the back of his mind. She wraps her arms around his waist, tilting her body ever so slightly to the side to make room for her rounded abdomen, home for at least a few more weeks to their unborn child – yet another miracle to add to his list. Rey swears this one is a girl.

"Everyone's wondering where you are," she says softly, rubbing her cheek back and forth across the rough linen of his tunic. "Is everything okay?"

"Just counting my blessings," he says in a voice gruff with suppressed emotion. "Same as I do every evening at sunset."

"And what are your blessings?" she asks, as she always does.

He feels her smile against his back as he begins to speak. "First: the sunset that brings relief from the heat of the day. Second: another chance at life, an opportunity to do things right. Third: the wisdom of those who have gone before, even if Uncle Luke tries to drink all the Bantha milk. Fourth: the light of my life. My Rey, my wife. Fifth: the opportunity to hone our skills together as we prepare to teach a new generation of Jedi the ways of the Force. Sixth: Our son, the scoundrel. Seventh: Our friends. Eighth: the child to come – whatever he or she may be."

With the suns now set and the evening routine complete, Ben and Rey make their way back to the party. When they reach the edge of the gathering, he pulls out his datapad, ready to finally add his friend's names to his official "blessings" list. He doesn't know when - or how - it happened, but there are so many of them now it's hard to remember their names without a few reminders. Tonight's celebration of the grand opening of the Outer Rim's very first Jedi Academy provides the perfect opportunity.

Their friends have spread out across the open stretch of sand that doubles as a yard – clustered in small groups, holding plates of food and drink and chatting, several small children darting to and fro among them laughing and screaming at the tops of their lungs.

His throat clogs with tears as he watches Uncle Chewie give little Han a piggyback ride, never mind that the Wookiee's getting too old to mess around like that anymore. But Ben refuses to tell him to stop because there's a spark in young Han's eyes that reminds everyone of the boy's namesake, and Ben won't take that away from his Uncle again.

Finn, Poe, and a holographic Ben Kenobi are deep in conversation with one of the Galactic Senators here for the school's grand opening ceremony. The trio of politicians flew in with Chewie on the _Falcon_ and brought with them an official document releasing Ben from exile and granting him a full pardon on the condition that he and Rey begin training Jedi immediately. Apparently, he's more than proven his loyalty.

They could board the _Falcon_ tonight, go anywhere in the galaxy they wanted, and no one would be able to stop them. But they won't because, for better or worse, their life is here now. He's gotten used to finding sand in his breakfast and ghosts in the hall and is no longer quite sure what he would do without either.

It goes without saying that the pardon was politically-motivated. The Galactic Senate has been hearing rumors for several years now; whispers of a gathering darkness along the far edges of the galaxy. "Light rises and darkness to meet it," Ben murmurs. Only a fool would ignore the signs. He and Rey have worked hard these past six years, and whether they're ready or not, it's time to begin training a new order, a new generation of Jedi who will meet the rising tide not with fear of the darkness and its power to corrupt them, but with confidence in their ability to both understand and resist it.

Ben flexes his right hand, feels the ache of arthritis in the bones that no longer fit together the way they once did. Although he's taught himself how to wield a saber with his left hand nearly as well as with his right, he's still had to come to terms with the fact that he will never regain full use of his right hand, not even with the alterations Rey made to his lightsaber.

The trooper who shattered his hand – KY-4163 – never found his family, although Finn and Rose helped him search for years after the war ended. He's officially theirs now, a member of their extended family and an honorary big brother to Finn and Rose's little girls. Paige and Amilyn named him Kyle. The three of them zigzag in and around the floodlights that illuminate the yard, engrossed in a lively game of Tag the Force Ghost with BB-8, Uncle Luke, and Ben Kenobi's old master, Qui-Gon Jinn.        

He watches as Rey wanders over to a corner of the yard where Rose talks with Master Yoda and a stately woman in her mid-forties, yet another member of the Galactic Senate. The former mechanic bounces a baby in her arms, but this one isn't hers. The curly-haired boy is Poe's son. Ben doesn't ever think he'll get over Poe being a senator's husband, much less the husband of the very senator who was instrumental in negotiating the terms of his release. The three women laugh at something Master Yoda has just said – most likely the story of when he first met Luke on Dagobah. It's one of Yoda's favorites.

His grandfather is the only Force ghost not in attendance tonight. Anakin is hiding out in Ben's workshop, probably pretending to tinker with the old pod racer Ben's spent the past few years restoring in his spare time. Family get-togethers are understandably difficult for the Skywalker patriarch. Ben knows when he reemerges tomorrow after their guests have departed, he'll be back to his old self and ready to squabble with master(s) and offspring alike about which one of them was the best pilot back in their heyday.

Ben has turned and is heading in Rey's direction when he happens to cross paths with a man he's never met before. He seems to remember the gentleman flew in with Maz Kanata and is here as her date, but doesn't think he ever caught a name. The diminutive cantina owner has provided most of the funds they needed to get the Jedi Academy off the ground and serves as the head of their board of directors. Ben hasn't seen her yet this evening, but he knows she's out there somewhere, likely still trying to get a moment alone with Chewie.

The man is perhaps a decade older than Ben and looks entirely too sophisticated to be wandering around in the desert sand, what with his immaculately groomed salt-and-pepper hair, neatly trimmed mustache, and stylish white suit with a red plom bloom pinned to the lapel. This man belongs in a casino with the high-rollers, not at a family party in the middle of nowhere. The stranger offers a white-gloved hand and Ben obediently shakes it. "I don't think we've met," he says.

"Oh, I'm no one of consequence," the stranger says with a dismissive wave. He turns to Rey, who has just joined them and presses a lingering kiss on the back of her hand. Ben reaches down and discreetly grabs Rey's other hand just in time to keep her from punching the stranger in the face. His wife doesn't appreciate this sort of obsequious behavior, nor does she tolerate unwanted touches. "Jedi Master Rey," the man continues, completely unaware that Ben has just saved him from getting blood all over his too-white suit. "What a pleasure it is to see you again. You look ravishing, my dear."

_You should have let me punch him,_ Rey says. _A broken nose would improve his looks immensely._

_Normally I would, but you know what they say about punching your dinner guests. Besides, he's Maz's date, and we can't afford to lose her funding. Moisture farming does_ not _pay well._

_You know full well Maz would never pull her funding because I punched a creep in the face for good cause, even if that creep_ is _her date._

Ben has to fight to hide a smile. As usual, Rey is right. When she elbows him lightly in the ribs, he realizes he's been asked a question but has no clue what. "I'm sorry," he says aloud, "but can you repeat your question? I'm afraid my mind wandered for just a moment."

"Certainly. I was saying your wife has perhaps the most recognizable face in the galaxy, but I'm afraid I'm having trouble placing yours. Strangely, it's your bearing that seems familiar more so than your features. What did you say your name was, my friend?"

Ben doesn't know quite how to respond. His identity has never really mattered out here in the desert. Even if it did, no one knows much of anything about him since he and Rey keep mostly to themselves, and they never volunteer personal information. Even Rey, as famous as she is, isn't so easily recognizable on this desert world.

He expected to remain nameless for the rest of his life, a former villain long forgotten by the galaxy that once feared him. But the Republic has changed all that with their Jedi school and their fancy pardon. Suddenly, he's Ben Solo again. Son of Han and Leia. Nephew of Luke. Grandson of Anakin. Worst of all, he's the man the galaxy once knew as Kylo Ren. There's so much history in a name. And he has two to contend with. Can he find the strength to stand under the weight of them? Does he even want to?

Before he has a chance to decide anything, he feels a sense of déjà vu so strong it nearly knocks him off his feet. For a split second, he's back on the _Finalizer,_ back-to-back with Rey, her hand on his, a vision of this very moment flashing in front of his eyes. It's there and gone in the blink of an eye, so quickly he thinks it might never have happened but for the fact that he can tell Rey felt it too.

_The vision, Ben! Did you see it?_

_Yes, I saw it._

_Do you remember what I told you that day? About who you are and who you can choose to be?_

_I do._

_Then tell him, love. Tell him who you are._

And so he does.

"My name is Ben," he says. "Just Ben."

THE END


End file.
